Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Dish Night At The Movies


I'm joining Coloradolady for another Thursday session of her wonderful
Vintage Thingies Thursday.
Bring some of your vintage treasures over and share!

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, in some cases even into the 1950s, theaters held special
Ladies Only nights, Dish Night and other promotion based events to draw in customers.
Homer Laughlin's dishes were quite often the dinnerware of choice for some of the promotions.
Examples like these are hard to come by and greatly sought after by collectors.
These four are among the plates I have in my collection.


The Post 86 Sunflower bread and butter plate was a promotional piece I had made by Homer Laughlin for a presentation I gave a number of years ago at one of the Homer Laughlin China Collectors Association conferences.  Each attendee was given a plate at the end of the "movie." The event  was set in an old time movie motif in one of the hotel ballrooms and included an old fashioned refreshment stand, ushers with flashlihgts and a multi-media presentation of
items from my Homer Laughlin ephemera collection.



And here are the vintage examples.





Some of these will be unmarked, but many are marked.
Here are a couple examples of two backstamps.


A Homer Laughlin backstamp will reveal a lot about when a particular item was produced.
The numerals and letters above indicate that this piece was made in March of 1941 at the
Newell, West Virginia plant #5.  Over the years there were a lot of changes in the coding
system that sometimes make it difficult to determine when a piece was made.  The best
piece of information is to know what your shape is, as opposed to the decoration, and when
that shape was first produced.  That will help in deciphering the code when variations in
the numbering/lettering systems occur.



Thanks for coming by to see some of the more obscure items in my collection of dinnerware.
Hope to see you again soon.

30 comments:

  1. What a wonderful collection!! I don't remember the theater dishes. But I remember the Silver Dust detergent glasses and the quaker oats wheat dishes.......

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  2. Candy, your collection is just awesome! The plates are so pretty and I don't think I have ever seen one! Thank you for sharing, appreciate it so very much!

    Nancy

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  3. What an interesting thing! I've never heard or seen anything like this before- but I guess it makes sense, even today banks still give away "freebies" as promo products. I wish we had places that still gave out lovely things like your dishes though, lol! Thanks for teaching me something new and Happy VTT!

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  4. Those are really interesting. I've never seen any of those before.

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  5. That is so neat! I have never seen dishs like this before. I have heard of dish's being used as promotional giveaways but have never seen dish's that actually say this on them! How cool to have the original promos!

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  6. Candy, didn't even know these ever existed. It's fascinating. Those days are so long gone aren't they? Wouldn't it be fun to step back in time and see how they did all this stuff?

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  7. How fun are these dishes! I have never seen any before. Great collection.


    Jocelyn
    http://justalittlesouthernhospitality.blogspot.com

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  8. such beautiful plates you have! love them all!.

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  9. I loved this post of gorgeous dishes. I can remember dishes and glassware being given in everything from detergent to oatmeal..and promotional dishes and glassware being also given at service stations. I think your dishes are just wonderful,and the way you display is just gorgeous. Happy VTT..and thank you for sharing.

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  10. Thanks for sharing this. Most people I know wouldn't appreciate this kind of thing. This is another reason why I love blogland. My mom also used to talk about promotions but nothing like this. Thanks again.

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  11. What fun, I never heard of this tradition!

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  12. This was all new to me, and very interesting.

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  13. educational and entertaining -- edutaining?
    thanks sooooooooooo much

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  14. What a wonderfully interesting collection of Homer Laughlin plates! Would the whole 52 piece dinner set have the premium info on it? LOL!

    Thanks for the information on the marks.

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  15. So interesting! I wish they still gave some at theaters, I would go more often! lol

    Happy VTT!

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  16. What a wonderful collection of plates. I am not familiar with them.I truly enjoyed seeing yours.

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  17. These are so unique. Where in the world do you find these? I've never come across anything like this. They are truly beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

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  18. What a wonderful collection! Nowadays you can't even buy a bucket of popcorn at the theatre for less than the price of a piece of fine china. Ha!

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  19. What a great collection - how cool that you are able to find the plates with the promotion printed on them.

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  20. I have never seen anything like that, how cool. I want to find some. I always enjoy finding a new collectible. Thanks for sharing.

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  21. Thank you for sharing you oh-so-interesting collection! I love how the plates are dated, I've never seen anything like it. I wasn't a plate collector before, but now I'll be on the lookout.

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  22. I have never seen any of these before but trust me, I will be looking for them now! These are beautiful!

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  23. So glad you all enjoyed seeing some of my odd-ball pieces! They are something that doesn't show up all that often, but make a cute addition to the regular pieces you might find in this same pattern/shape.

    Miri - the sets didn't have the promo info on them and you had to keep going back week after week to collect enough dishes to set your table.

    Candy

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  24. What a great collection! I have an almost complete set of French-Saxon dishes that my mother got by going to the movies(she got the whole set but some got broken over the years). I have never seen any with the advertising info printed on them. I'm going to keep my eyes open for them!

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  25. Hi Bonnie - How lucky that you have your mom's set of Dish Night dinnerware! These promo ones are pretty scarce and highly sought after by collectors.

    Candy

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  26. What a great post! I have never seen any of these in all my outings! You have an amazing collection!

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  27. Thanks to our Vintage Thingies hostess for stopping by and I'm so happy you enjoyed seeing these guys!

    Candy

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  28. Hi! I found your site via Google, and I like it! I was wondering if you knew the name of the pattern on the blue dish from the Calo Theater. I have the same pattern in red, but I don't know anything about it. Thanks in advance! Tracey

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  29. Tracey, the "shape" is Eggshell Georgian and the backstamp is shown above. There were hundreds of ways this shape was decorated, most of which are just noted by a letter/number combination. Many potteries decorated their dinnerware with patterns similar to the one shown on the Calo plate. Check for a backstamp, which would be necessary to ID the maker of your dinnerware.

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  30. Mine does say Georgian Eggshell with the stamp H43 N5 which I know means that it was made in Aug 1943. My stamp is like the one above from 1941 that you show. I just wasn't sure if that style pattern had a particular name since HL has so many different Eggshell patterns. Thanks for your help. I like the blog and the music!

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Thank you for your lovely comments.

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