With this first real post, we’re happy to introduce you to the newest aspect of the Bauer Pottery Company of Los Angeles. Bauer Pottery has had a presence on the web for several years at BauerPottery.com, though that is primarily a retail and general information site.These pages will be more about what we do at Bauer on a day to day basis: What’s going into and coming out of the kilns; what new pieces are being created; that sort of thing.
It will also be a place for you as a Bauer fan and collector to be able to interact more with us and with one another. Down the line we’d like to post information about what you are collecting, where you find your pottery, both new and vintage, and how you use and/or display it all.
While it’s nice to read about Bauer Pottery, we feel that it’s even more fun to see, so we’ll be posting lots of images here, drawing from both our Flickr page and from your submissions. For the time being, hold onto to all your stories and images, but we’ll be asking for them soon, so have them ready.
What’s New at Bauer
Many of you may know the history of the original J.A. Bauer Pottery Company, which can be traced back to the late 1800s in Paducah, KY. The original company moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900s, created many popular and well-imitated lines of pottery and ultimately went out of business in 1962. (Yes, this does give short shrift to the history of Bauer, but I’m trying to get us all to a point about what’s new!)The story of the new Bauer starts in 1998 when collector Janek Boniecki revitalized the trademark and began reproducing popular pieces from the ringware line of the 1920s and 30s. You can get a brief overview of this story in a profile on Janek published in the November 2002 issue of Entrepreneur magazine.
Since that time, Janek has been contracting to third-party manufactures to have the pottery made. As of October of last year, Janek purchased the factory of California Design Works, the company that had been making the bulk of the pottery since 2002.With full control of the production process, we hope to increase the quality, variety and availability of Bauer to all of you. If we’ve heard one complaint over the years, it’s been about the availability of a particular piece or a particular color. Hopefully, that will be a thing of the past.
Well, we could go on and on about what’s new and what’s coming up, but if we told you everything now, you wouldn’t come back for more. Check back, we hope to post relatively frequently. If you have any suggestions or questions, please drop us a line at blog @ bauerpottery.com.
9 comments:
Just wanted to let ya'll know - I had been wanting a piece of Bauer Pottery for ages but never got around to buying one. Two weeks ago I was in New Orleans and went into a great shop on Magazine Street called Plum (v.cool stuff by the way). I'm finally the proud owner of a Bauer tumbler and vase. I can't wait to add to my new collection.
www.pbchick.com
Thanks for the comment, PBChick. Glad to hear that you're starting your Bauer collection.
It's also nice to know that you were able to patronize Plum. We were getting ready to ship an order to Danal right around the time Katrina hit. Though her store wasn't destroyed, all delivery service to the area was cut off.
We kept in touch and as soon as UPS service was restored to the area, she took delivery of her order.
If any other readers are in or visiting New Orleans, please stop in and visit Danal at her store Plum..
Cool blog!
Could someone give me a suggestion as to how to identify an old Bauer piece? I bought a turquoise-colored bean pot-type thing at a garage sale that says "Bauer Los Angeles 2" on the bottom, and I haven't been able to find any pictures or descriptions matching it on the web. So I am wondering if there is one single recommended book or website that is considered authoritative for identifying pieces in terms of when they were made, etc.
Thanks!
I hope you continue to mark all your newly made Bauer with a 2000 mark in the clay and clearly differentiate it from the vintage.
I have several of your pieces and like them very much indeed. I would just hate to see there be any possibility of confusion between the revived and the vintage.
Thank you!
Hi Mary,
Thanks for the compliment!
Regarding your Bean Pot, I've just added links to the right sidebar of some of our favorite books on Bauer Pottery. We refer to these on a regular basis.
Though you haven't seen one yet, a good place to look for information on pricing is eBay. While this may not give a scholarly view of what a piece is worth, it will definitely let you know what people are willing to pay.
Finally, if you'd like to send us an image or a link to an image of your piece, we might be able to help you identify it. Or perhaps we can open it up to the readers to see if they can help you.
Hello Anon,
It was just such confusion, intentional or not, that motivated us to add the "2000" mark to almost all of our pieces very early on in the reproduction process.
I say "almost" because there are a few pieces, which have a base to small to include the "2000" mark -- the Sherbet Cup, Salt & Pepper Shakers and Madagascar Bud Vase.
All that said, there are a few early Bauer 2000 pieces, vases mainly, that do not bear the "2000" mark.
Hi, thank you for the suggestions.
Here are two links to photos of my bean pot (I'm not even sure that's the right word for what it is):
Here, and here.
If anyone can identify it, that would be great! If not, I'll try consulting the books that were suggested.
Thanks!
would LOVE to see you guys do the Madonna Art piece. any chance of that heppening?
Eric in Florida
This Bauer Pottery are made out of very amazing and unique designs. I'm thinking of where I could possibly buy of their ceramics and mugs designs.
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