Treasure Craft-Pottery Craft: California & Hawaii's Last Major Pottery

By George A. Higby and George A Higby Isa

California's last large pottery producer, Treasure Craft, became a major force in the giftware market from the late 1940s until 1995. The firm's Hawaiian plant and Pottery Craft stoneware art lines were enormously popular. Over 650 beautiful color photographs present widely varied ceramic collectibles produced by Treasure Craft from the late 1940s until 1995, including Disneyana items, over two hundred novelty cookie jars, Hawaiiana, figurines including Lucky California Sprites and their predecessors Naughty Gnomes, and dinnerware lines. Among the wares displayed are works by notable sculptors Ray Murray, Don Winton, and Robert Maxwell. This new book presents material on manufacturer's marks, and look-alike products. Values in the captions round out this thorough presentation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764320726
• ISBN13: 9780764320729
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Schiffer Publishing
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.5" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

more than just a great pottery collector's reference

The book's focus is the pottery of two California-based companies, Treasure Craft and Pottery Craft, throughout the second half of the 20th century. Higby is intimately acquainted with his topic: he grew up on the West Coast with the pottery, he did business with its manufacturers, he has actively collected and traded in their wares for much of his adult life. He had personal access to the eyewitnesses, for reasons other than simply being an author or collector, and it shows. My first impression of _Treasure Craft Pottery & Pottery Craft Stoneware_ came when I opened it to the middle: "Whoa! This is gorgeous!" I refer to the consistent flow of excellent photography throughout the volume: clear, near, well-cropped images in vivid colour and great quantity. Two typical facing pages will have six photos, occupying the bulk of the space but not all. All are clearly captioned as to era, value and size; somehow, the author (or publisher) worked in enough white space to avoid overwhelming the reader. Looks like 650 photos for 176 pages including the index: pretty impressive. For someone who collects the pottery, it's hard to imagine a more definitive work. Bazillions of captioned, priced photos, who collects it and why, a pricing guide, condition, care, even how the stuff was made. If you're serious about collecting it, you're going to want it. But even if you're not, there are a number of reasons you might. As the author says of himself, if you were born before 1990 this pottery was probably a part of your life whether you realized it or not. These companies must have done thousands of designs: hula dancers, salt shakers, cookie jars, condiment jars, little gnome creatures, fish trays, anything that could be made of pottery. In this timeframe, too, Hawaii went from "Place of bombed-out aero-naval base we will avenge" to "New state and national jungle gym." As Hawaii rose in the national awareness, so did interest in Hawaiian-themed images, and so on. If you just like to look at pictures, as many of us do but few will cop to, you can enjoy the book as a visual journey. If you have a deeper interest, you'll appreciate that Higby has gone much farther: he places each pottery era in the broader context of its time, describing how the pottery was meant to mesh with popular wants, issues and mores. I have always loved to see history, any history, written well and without wonkiness. Rarely is it this well researched and broad-minded, free of the infuriatingly buzzwordy affectations that paralyze much business historical writing. The broader historical overlay is the theme of American-made crafts as a dying breed: Treasure Craft's long, tenacious rearguard action to remain an American company making American products to sell to Americans. _Treasure Craft Pottery & Pottery Craft Stoneware_ also has much to interest potters: anyone who works in clay and cooks their stuff in a big hairy kiln at temperatures that scare me. "How'd

Great book

George has done a great job of covering the history and the products of this great California and Hawaii institution. A very good read.