CHESS AND THE TRANSFERWARE COLLECTORS CLUB

William Adams IV & Sons (1834-1864) washbowl printed in red in a pattern known as Chess Players or Chess Battle, ca. 1836.

October 9th is National Chess Day.  I knew there were some transferware patterns that showed people playing chess, so I went to the database of the Transferware Collectors Club to see if there were patterns with which I wasn't familiar. (I thought I'd just insert a shout out here for the fabulous TCC database of more than 14,000 patterns!  If you want to see the entire database, you need to join the TCC, but the cost is a very reasonable $50 a year for domestic members and $60 a year for everyone else. I realize this is shameless advertising, but I couldn't resist because I am one of the database editors.)

Here are a few more chess patterns.  

Maker Unknown 7 inch child's plate printed with a similar pattern to the one above.  The TCC database shows another plate with the same pattern and molded border of rose, tulip, and aster, but it is impressed "Wedgwood."

John & Jos Mayer (1842-1855) pot lid showing a political cartoon titled "A False Move."  The players are the Pope and John Bull.

Maker Unknown 2.5 inch child's mug showing two men playing a game of chess, ca. 1840.

Malkin Edge & Co. (1870-1900) 6" tile printed in a pattern know as Chess.

I thought I'd add a photo of the beautiful 8.6 inch jug that belongs with the washbowl seen above.

William Adams IV & Sons (1834-1864) 8.6 inch wash jug.

The chess games seen here are examples of the Romantic Era of Chess which was played between the late 15th century and the 1880s. If you want to know more about the history of chess, follow this link.

NATIONAL CAT DAY AND TRANSFERWARE

Child's plate with a molded alphabet border titled "Cat And Kittens."

October 29 is National Cat Day.  Cats are my favorite animals.  I like all animals: dogs, horses, lions, giraffes, etc.  However,  I have chosen to live with cats for the last 47 years.  I have had as many as seven (too many) at one time, but two seems to be a good number.  The cats keep one another amused, and the litter box is not too onerous.

I didn't think cats were that popular on transferware pattern when I wrote my first cat post in 2013.  I was wrong. There are 106 patterns, so far, that feature cats in the database of the Transferware Collectors Club.

Here are some more wonderful cat patterns that are from my own collection.  Since I can't easily collect real cats, I collect transferware that features cats.

Some of my favorite transferware cat items. Click on the photo to make it larger.

Child's mug showing a cat, girl, and bowl of milk. 

Child's mug "For A Good Girl" featuring a cat catching a rat. It's an odd picture for a child's mug, but I discovered that a similar image was used to illustrate "This is the cat that ate the rat" from the cumulative rhyme "The House That Jack Built."

Four inch plate that shows a cat wearing clothes and walking on its hind legs!

Child's cup that shows a cat ignoring a girl who is admonishing him. Although you can't see it in this photo, the cat is looking longingly at a bird! The pattern is sometimes titled "The Playfellow" or "The Favourite."

Child's mug with the caption "For A Good Girl."  Her mother is helping her learn to walk. Notice that the girl is petting a cat.

A child's plate "For a good Girl" shows a handsome cat sitting in the window. The source print is from Thomas Bewick's "A General History Of Quadrupeds."

A charming post card from 1906 shows two kittens, perhaps Persian kittens, who are sitting in a 19th century transfer printed soup tureen.  Can anyone make out the pattern?

Can you call two cats a collection?  I was told you need three of anything in order for it to count as a collection.  The cat on the left is Charlotte and the one on the right is Percy, aka Big Cat.

On more thing, if you don't like cats, take a look at my blog posts that show other animals.  Like dogs.