Lon Bulgarin - your gilding date of 1870 is correct (more or less).

For a quick reference check: Lewis, Griselda    1999    A Collector's History of English Pottery        Antique Collector's Club, Suffolk UK

for more info on white granite check:

Godden, Geoffrey                1999    Ironstone Stone and Granite Wares       Antique Collector's Club, Suffolk, UK

Both are relatively new and exhaustive sources.

Carl Steen

1/22/2002 7:05:22 AM, Lon Bulgrin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
>
>  Date:   Tue, 22 Jan 2002 22:05:22 +1000
>
>  From:   Lon Bulgrin <[log in to unmask]>
>  Subject:Re: White Granite
>  To:     [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
>  Ron May wrote:
>
>
>    Robert,
>
>
>    World economics and mass production on unheard of scale flooded the
>    market with nice quality but soft paste white ceramics, as you have noted
>    for the 1890-1950 era. Out here, the harder "improved paste" with molded
>    designs nearly totally replaced the mid 19th century soft paste from 1870
>
>    to 1890. But something happened and soft paste rose in popularity. The
>    gilt accents, rise in decalcomania, and improved machine painting also
>    marks those soft paste pieces as later. During the American Great
>    Depression of the 1930s, soft paste white ceramics dominated the markets.
>
>
>    The molded white ware with the harder improved paste comprised about 80%
>    of the ceramics out here in California from about 1860 to 1880. I have
>
>    wondered if this coincided with strict religious beliefs condemning
>    ostentatious displays, but have not really tested those waters.
>
>
>    Then a revival of transfer-printing on all forms of paste (including
>    porcelain and Bone China) appeared in the 1880s (mostly loose floral
>    designs). Transfer prints have always appealed to Americans as nostalgia
>    markers and I recall my mother buying a set at a grocery store in the
>
>    early 1960s. You still see special Christmas sets sold with transfer
>    prints.
>
>
>    Ron
>
>  Ron,
>  I think that tastes in the method of ceramic decoration just were different
>  from the 1880s into the early 20th century.  I agree that you have a limited
>  amount of transfer printing until the blue green and pale brown art nouveau
>  transfer prints and flow blue of the turn of the century but on the other
>  hand you see a much more elaborate molding at the same time (low relief
>  versus the bolder molded ironstones of the mid-19th century) and of course
>  the tremendous increase in gilding.  But I would bet that this was tied more
>  into ideas of refinement than into religious beliefs.  This was one of the
>  periods in American history where class differences were most clear and
>  raw.  Feel free though to disagree, this may be more of an east coast
>  perspective and of course debate is the meat of our discipline  By the way
>  does anyone have a reference for the "liquid gold" gilding?  I lost mine in
>  moving but I recall that the process started approximately 1870.
>  Lon
Carl Steen
Archaeologist
The Diachronic Research Foundation
PO Box 50394
Columbia, SC 29250
Web Site: http://diachronicresearch.com