Monday, August 1, 2011

Pottery Repair & Restoration by Yesterware

Oil Jar during repair (left) and after (right)

We get the call once or twice a month.

A semi-distraught voice tells us how a vintage piece of Bauer, which has been in the family for a generation or two, got chipped, cracked or broken.

"Do you do repairs?"

"Can you match this glaze?"

"Do you sell a kit?"

Our answer to all of this type of question regrettably has been "no." We've also never had a good place to refer anyone for this type of work, until now.

We found Mike & Netta Yaeck while shopping for some vintage pieces on eBay. They were selling a Bauer Honey Jar bottom with a reproduction lid that they had made. After purchasing the honey jar from them we wanted to find out more about how they came to making vintage Bauer reproductions.

Mike & Netta have been working under the company name Yesterware out of their studio in Bakersfield for the past 10 years. While they were both collectors, they were not in the pottery business before Yesterware. He was a general contractor and she was a silversmith.

This Rebekah Vase was missing a handle before Yesterware created a new one.

Wanting to repair some of their own pieces, they researched repair techniques and started fixing up pottery as a hobby. The hobby became a full-time job and now they do a lot of custom work for auction houses as well as taking in private jobs.

Their service starts at $75.00 to repair chips and goes up from there. In addition to chip repair, they can fix cracks, reassemble broken pieces and even reproduce entire parts, as we found out with our honey pot.

If you have a piece that you'd like repaired, please call Mike & Netta at (661) 32-BAUER [22837] or by email at nyaeck@bak.rr.com.

Of course, if you need to replace a piece with some Bauer 2000, you can always give us a call!




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Bottom photo: D&M Tile, Los Angeles, circa 1930, repaired by Yesterware
All photos courtesy of Mike & Netta Yaeck of Yesterware.

3 comments:

J Dangermond said...

They repaired a cookie jar lid for me, and you cannot see the repair.

Anonymous said...

Great People..Repaired a 1930's Pointer dog ashtray. Repaired and reglazed..looked great. Couldnt tell Where the repair had been made. When I was in thier studio, Mike was working on the Fountains from Catalina Island..The owners had them delivered to Yesterware..That was something to see.

Elle said...

This is really good to know. The restored pot looks so much better!