Just Wondering

from David Chadwick-Brown of San Diego

Alan,

A periodic perusal of those wonderful resources, the books by Paul Gardner and Tom Dimitroff, always seems to provide new sights and insights. Thank you, Paul and Tom! This time it was the sight of a sales catalogue photographic reproduction in Tom’s book, page 147, of a clutch of hexagonal table settings in Cluthra.

Those marked #6909 all have six-sided elements – except the underplate, which I presumed ought to be our old standard #2028.

Shape: 2028

Form: Plate

Color: White Cluthra

Type: Cluthra

Decoration: Shading, Rose Cluthra

Size: 8.5 in dia.

But as the website tells us, there actually exists an hexagonal underplate.

Shape: 6909

Form: Fingerbowl & Underplate

Color: White Cluthra

Type: Cluthra

Decoration: Shading, Rose Cluthra

It seems strange that they would not have been consistent, putting hex plate under hex bowl. (I know, I know – consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds…!)

So, was the denomination of the plate in the photograph as #6909 an intentional re-branding of the standard plate as a #6909 when done in Cluthra? We know of several instances when a standard shape is assigned a new number when given engraving, or some decorative element. Next, off to the website for #2028, where there is to be found but a single example, out of 65, of a Cluthra #2028 plate. Does being a Cluthra plate of the standard shape move it into a new number, as the sales catalogue would seem to indicate, or is it “a rose Cluthra is a rose Cluthra, is a rose #2028 Cluthra…”?

Does that also mean that there is an hexagonal plate out there, a numberless orphan, as a result?

Also, my musings compare the the amethyst goblet, page 136-7, #6866, with the numberless centerbowl, page 144. Might they not have been given the same number, since there are so many other extensive settings, all bearing the same number, a la #6909? Just wondering….

See you, and many others, in September.

Regards,

David