Modern Variations

Let’s start with a repeat showing of the ones that started it all – my first cow, and my dad’s; and per Bessie and her calves, what happens when you put a bunch of these animals together.  My father’s little blue creamer is German porcelain with a Delft design, and dates from @ the 1910s. Bessie comes from the late ‘40s or early 50’s, and has been identified by sellers variously as “made by American Pottery for Disney by Shaw”, or as one of the animal figurines of Robert Simmons of California.  I favor the latter interpretation.

And here are the two single-hole creamers that were also featured in "My Story" - wood fired pottery by Ingrid Barnes.  Her husband and I were college classmates and fraternity brothers way back when, and I have been pestering Ingrid for decades to make me a cow creamer.  She finally came through (after I made her a Nantucket Lightship berry basket, nothing like a bribe for motivation).  I find the coloration on these fascinating - except for the blue spots and edging, Ingrid assures me it's a 'gift of the kiln gods', attributable solely to the firing process.

Almost every kitchen shop sells some version of the ‘plain white’ cow creamer.  They come in a rather amazing variety of sizes and shapes, and most of the ‘big name’ cooking schools and kitchen suppliers, e.g. Cordon Bleu, have one or more versions. So do many important porcelain manufacturing areas, e.g. Limoges.

Here are some examples of rather ‘fine’ pure white cow creamers – one of the two on the outside is marked in green for Gerold Porzellan, Bavaria, Made in Western Germany (their post-1949 mark), and has a black and gold crown sticker on its side from “E&R” (for Ebeling and Reuss ) and Western Germany (meaning after E and W Germany  separated in 1949).  It also has “Germany” and the item number “1498” impressed on the lower right side of the belly, as does its mate which is otherwise without any marks.  There is a very fine web site, produced by JoAnn Snow who collects Gerold Porzellan, that gives a lot of information about this company which operated in Tettau, Bavaria, under various names from 1937 – 1997. See www.gerold-porzellan.com; it contains a shot of one of these creamers under kitchenware.  Many of my other German cow creamers bear a similar impression of Germany and an item number but are otherwise unmarked; it may be that they are also from this company.  The creamer with the cover in this picture is marked “White Magic, 2092A, Holland”, and also has a joined script J and P.  Goebel’s pure white cows, of similar quality, were shown in the Favorite Brands Theme.

There are also some Staffordshire-style white cow creamers.  I believe this large one with a calf is quite modern, since it is clearly marked for “Leedsware Classical Creamware, England”, and early pottery was generally unmarked, and never with a printed stamp.  There is an interesting story here, however.   From www.worldwideshoppingmall.co.uk’s section on pottery we learn that “Brothers' John and Joshua Green in partnership founded LEEDS POTTERY in Leeds in 1770 with Richard Humble. Success soon came with the production of household goods in a variety of ceramic bodies, the most popular being CREAMWARE, a type of earthenware made by several companies from white Cornish Clay with a translucent glaze, producing the pale cream colour from which it took its name…By 1781 William Hartley had added his design and business expertise to the Green brothers' production skills and under the name Hartley Greens & Co the company flourished, expanding its trade across Europe and into Russia. Such was its success that from then on Creamware would also be known as Leedsware. In the 19th century after the death of its founders the different tastes of the Victorian era brought a gradual decline in business, leading eventually to the Pottery's closure in 1878. Despite the later demolition of the kilns and buildings, surviving moulds and clues from pattern books together with fine examples of Leeds pieces in local museums enabled production of Creamware to the original designs to continue to this day.”

Here’s another interesting cow.  It bears the impression for COPELAND (plus ‘J84’), which the Stoke-on-Trent potteries’ website’s section on marks tells us stands for W. T. Copeland (c.1847-1970), a manufacturer of earthenware, parian, and fine porcelain at Stoke, and the successors to Copeland & Garrett (1833-1847), which in turn succeeded Josiah Spode (1770-1833); and which has been Spode Ltd. since 1970.  The COPELAND impression doesn’t tell us much about age since it was their standard mark since 1847.  I was told that the stand or plinth underneath the cow was intended to keep the soft porcelain from drooping during firing.  This cow is not porcelain, but it retains the centerpiece from what I expect was the original mold, perchance from Dover as discussed below. 

Here’s another interesting characteristic of white creamers – they come in all sexes…   M, F, X…

The one on the left here, with the dots for eyes, is another of the ‘boys’, from Taiwan.   The one in the middle with big eyelashes is a French lady, sporting on her belly a green fleur de lis with “Veritable Porcelaine de grand feu”.  The heavy little seated one is stamped “WCL”, and is here because it’s an example of a white one that wasn’t always that way.  The little black specks indicate that at one time it had black ‘cold paint’ spots applied over the glaze, that have since washed off.  I have a couple others like that.

These two well formed porcelain cows migrated to Scotland from Germany. The one in back, with the very faded wording “Straucht frae the coo”, is from the same mold as the two brown creamers with lids further down this page.

It’s also quite popular to embellish the ‘standard’ white kitchen creamer with flowers or other decorations.   Like the plain ones, these come from a number of kitchen and cooking equipment purveyors, e.g. the one on the far left with the little pink flowers is from Pillivuyt of France, and the one with the orange poppy is from “Williams Sonoma Grand Cuisine”, also of France.   In the other photo, the heavy legged creamer with large blue flowers and the black tail tip is from STA in Cuernavaca, Mexico; a couple sets from the same mold and maker are discussed in the ‘creamer and sugars’ theme.  The one with butterflies and the raised lip on the back opening is from Limoges, France, while the other two are both from BIA Cordon Bleu, a wholesale company in California that was established in 1952.  These two are both apparently from the same mold, but are marked slightly differently – the one in the middle says BIA Cordon Bleu International, Custom Made in China, while the one on the far right  is marked for BIA Cordon Bleu Porcelaine & Chine, The Freida Collection, and Hand Decorated in the US.  Apparently different retail outlets for the same wholesale product.

Here is an unusual, very large, thick, heavy plain white creamer – unmarked.  Its companion, another ‘embellished’ version of the standard white creamer, has a bright red flower on the side you can’t see, and is marked “Made in France” in green, and “FLORENCE – Made in France” in gold…guess the maker wanted to make sure you knew it was made in France…just in case you couldn’t figure out what “Lait” was.

Here are a couple colored versions of the Copeland creamer with the central plinth.  The one on the left with brown horns, ears and some residual coloring has its lid, but has a broken left horn.  I purchased the more delicate one on the right, again without lid, at a London antique fair in 1997, and was told it was Derby Porcelain by Stevenson and Hancock, dating from @1865.  It does have their hand-drawn mark in red on the bottom, which dates from 1863.  There’s a great history of Derby pottery, and the role of S&H in it, at www.richardgardnerantiques.co.uk/pages/sections/section240.html.  These two creamers and the pure white Copeland one probably could have gone into the Staffordshire theme, but I’m quite unsure of the dates of at least the Copeland ones.

Some white creamers also come adorned with delicate raised flowers.  The kneeling cow with the handle is from N. Sorrento by Arnart.  The wonderful gotheborg web site’s page on Japanese marks notes that “Arnart Imports Inc. [which was started in 1952] is still in operation and is currently located in 230 Fifth Avenue, New York. The company specializes in Porcelain gifts and decorative accessories. First registrated trade mark is the Crown and A's mark registered April 30, 1953. A mark looking like a bee hive (which adorns this creamer), was first used the last of December 1957. Both were cancelled in 2001”.  The small matte-white cow with the gold bell is simply stamped “L-434” and has a blue and white oval sticker for Made in Japan.

Little white sitting up cow creamers are very popular, and not just in the US.   The one with little cows around the bottom Says “Grevilla Wines, Bega” on its chest, and it marked for Damsel Products of Australia on the bottom. Leave it to the Aussies to pour wine from a cow (or a boot, or …).  Its neighbor bears a sticker from Maxwell & Williams Designer Homewares, an Australian owned company that started in 1995.   In the middle picture, this creamer is sitting next to a smaller cousin, in this case one made by Dansk.  In the third shot, the Dansk creamer is surrounded by one from Spain on its right (seen also in the Pitchers section with its larger partners), and one from the UK on its left.  These little guys, made by a number of manufacturers, are widely sold in coffee and homewares shops, in some cases by the boxful just in case you might like to set one out for each of your guests.

Finally for the ‘white’ section, here’s a new little one with gold trimming that says on its belly, “Moo-LA-LA, Michael C. Fina”. This company started by selling silverware in Manhattan in 1935, and is still owned and operated by the Fina family. Today it also sells jewelry, dinnerware, houseware, and giftware. They have a nice web page.

Black and white is, if anything, even more popular than pure white; and many of these creamers also have a bit of pink or some additional accoutrements, ranging here from flowers and bells, to a rooster and a chef’s hat (that one also has a chef’s hat sugar bowl, that I didn’t bother to picture). 

Here are two ‘pairs’ that look similar, and may in fact be from similar molds, but at least are from different manufacturers.  The one on the left has a blurry stamp that says something like ‘Obrarte’, and an impressed number 630; its match on the right is unmarked.  Similarly, the squarish one with brown shading is clearly impressed for ©GIFTCO, while its companion has nothing to say for itself.

This is actually a bit of an odd assortment.  The three on the back and left came together – they’re a cup, a sugar, and – from the fact that there is a strainer inside – apparently a small teapot instead of a creamer (unless the strainer is intended to restrain flies, curds, or some such).  The one on the right with the long snout is named “Funky Dabarpact’; he was ‘designed exclusively for Debenhams’, the UK Department store, and was made in Thailand.  The little pitcher in front, with the tiny cow hanging on to the rim and the Swiss flag and label, is marked “Creation melpa Bulle”.  We bought it in Geneva.

Three variations on the ‘bulbous-nosed round cow’ theme.  The one on the left is unmarked, but “Dookie” in the middle has an impressed ©SM.  Dookie is very popular with kids in Europe, and even has his own web site (in French).  The cow on the right is copyrighted for TIC.

Yet more black and white, including some with bases, and one toward the middle that’s lost most of its cold paint and now sort of looks white but for the eyes.

The creamer with the trapezoidal base was made in Taiwan but has no manufacturer’s name.  The one with the blue bow and calf is “A Teleflora Gift”, ©Teleflora. I don’t know anything about that company, but a quick eBay search shows that >250 items of theirs are up for auction; and I did locate a Taiwanese ceramic manufacturer and exporter, Thai Pattana Ceramics, that shows Teleflora as one of the companies they serve.

Cow-yote?  Whatever, these two both come from Desert Doodads.  There’s an incomplete yellow pages listing for a company by that name in Tuscon, AZ, but no further information on the web.

The only one of these four that I have any information about is the large one facing sideways. She is prominently stamped with a crown over the words ‘Staffordshire Fine Ceramics’ in a circle, with ‘England’ in the middle and ‘Hand Painted’ below.   Given the number of potteries in Staffordshire, that still leaves me guessing.

The finely done Holstein standing in the grass with flowers is impressed with E.E.G.G. Ltd, and has a decal that reads “James Herriot’s Country Kitchen, 754048 Cow Creamer, Border Fine Arts Studio, © 1999 James Herriot, Made in Malaysia”.  EEGG is the Enesco European Giftware Group, headquartered in Carlisle, Cumbria, UK, a subsidiary of Enesco of Itasca, Illinois, which has a large line of branded giftware and collectibles.  Their products, under a number of brand names, are widely scattered through my collection. James Herriot, the pen name of James Alfred Wight, is a country veterinarian in England who’s perhaps best known for “All Creatures Great and Small.” Not surprisingly, there’s a James Herriot web page.  There are a couple more Border Fine Arts James Herriot creamers further down in this theme.  The Herriot cow’s companion in this picture, with the stand supporting its belly, is unmarked except for ‘6970’ on the right side of the base, which is hollow and connected through the legs to the body cavity; it came from the UK via eBay, so my assumption is that it is British or European.

This is a rather simple creamer that may not seem to deserve ‘stand-alone’ notoriety from all the other black and white ones, but what I find interesting is that the writing on the box, and on the inside care instructions, is in German, English, Dutch, and Czech.  He/she (it’s rather sexless…) has a decal on the bottom that says TCM, and it was ‘Made exclusively for: Tchibo GmbH, Überseering 18, Hamburg’, but gives a UK website (it turns out that Tchibo has websites, for on-line shopping, in several European companies).  Checking that out, I find that Tchibo started in 1949 as a mail order coffee company (that may explain why we found this cow in a coffee shop in the railroad station in Potsdam), but is now an international corporation whose product lines include “travel, mobile calling plans, financial services, fashion and technology.” Egad. Amazing what you can learn from a little cow, and equally amazing how companies change. 

Now, here’s an interesting interpretation – her legs are so short and splayed she’s standing on her teats. Rubber tipped of course.  Her tag appropriately dubs her “Udderly Cow Creamer”; she was made in China, ©2005 for Boston Warehouse Trading Company.  Their web site, www.bwtc.com, notes that they were founded by Peter Jenkins of Manchester, England, in 1974, initially distributing European products but creating their own housewares staring in 1980.  If this creamer is any indication, they have weird ideas about cows in Boston. 

This is a nicely fashioned Holstein that bears a faded sticker from Brinn’s, Pittsburgh, PA, and was ‘Made in Japan’, I believe in the 1950’s, but for sure after the quality of their export ceramics had significantly improved after the war. From a couple of web sites…e.g. headvase museum and auction bytes – we learn that “Founded by Samuel I. Brinn in the early 50's, the Pittsburgh-based company stayed under the management of the Brinn family. In its beginnings, Brinn's was a wholesaler of art ware, dinnerware, figures, garden pottery, jardinières, premiums, teapots, glassware, ovenware, novelties and various ceramic and glass accessories. By 1959, the company distributed ceramic and brass imports from Japan and England. Two decades later, under the operation of president Charles Brinn and vice president David M. Brinn, the company was listed as in importer of ceramic figurines, animals, novelties, dinnerware, stainless steel, and dolls.”  All kinds of ‘stuff’.

This is a lovely little German porcelain creamer, which has lost a bit of its paint from careful use, with an old brass bell and a picture of “Stettin, Manzelbrunnen”.  She could have just as easily fit in the Ads and Souveniers section.

Here’s a companion piece, again German porcelain, a souvenir of Ostseebad GrossMöllen, Westliche Dunenpromenade. It’s marked for “Verkatattenarbalk” … whatever that is.

I don’t quite know what to make of this one, but it’s delightful, with the lady with the pointy black cap and huge beer stein (do witches drink beer?) getting a ride.  It’s porcelain but has cold paint, an unusual combination.  The seller dated it to @1900, but didn’t provide any further information.

This creamer appears to be from the same mold as the cow the lady is riding. It’s nicely painted under its glaze, and is stamped with a double eagle crest and “Schwarzburg”, Wikipedia informs us that “The House of Schwarzburg was one of the oldest noble families of Thuringia, until its extinction in 1971 with the death of Prince Friedrich Günther.. Reigning over the County of Schwarzburg and founded by Sizzo I of Schwarzburg (died 1160), the family split in the 16th century into the lines of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, which were not reunified until 1909.” What that has to do with either cows or witches is beyond me, but for those with an interest, there’s a whole lot of info about the House Laws of Schwarzburg in www.heraldica.org.

Here’s another intriguing one – hand made by the seller, Dottie Dracos of  Oregon.   I’ve often wondered why more potters didn’t make cow creamers – this may be part of the answer.

And finally for the black and white, here’s a rather large lidded creamer, with “DWS, Ojai CA” hand written on the bottom.

There are also pure black cows, in addition to the Jackfield creamers.   These are all made from heavy red clay, in Japan; the small one bears a green sticker with white lettering for “Ezvin”; I can find a couple pointers to other products from them via google, but no further information.

This is a beautiful large German porcelain creamer – there are a couple others in the ‘German herd’ in the Places theme. It has the number “3” impressed in the bottom, but no other markings.

Brown cows come in a wide variety of tones and shading.  This is an international herd, with representatives from the US, Japan, and Europe.

Here are three small Japanese creamers (they almost made it into the miniatures theme), with the common characteristic of being filled below with grass and pink flowers.  The one on the left is unmarked, and the one on the right simply says Made in Japan; but the little Niagara Falls souvenir has a key-hole shaped stamp for the Pioneer Mdse. Co, N.Y.  I tried google and found that someone else had asked for information about them on yahoo, with no more information forthcoming.

Three unusual brown ones…the only one of these with any information comes from the seller of the one with the big flat nose on the left, who indicated it was from “COUNTERPOINT”, San Francisco, and Made in Japan.  The little one in the middle is also almost certainly from Japan

The sitting up calf with the buckle around its neck is copyrighted for Cracker Barrel, 1997. Those folks do make good breakfasts. Its lazy neighbor with the googly eyes is from Home Essentials and Beyond’s ‘Happy Cow Collection’. This company, founded in 1992, sells glass and ceramics, etc through retail chain stores.

This one isn’t marked, but I know for sure that it came from Malaysia because when the first one arrived with a broken tail, the seller and I had a friendly exchange of emails resulting in the arrival of this one, well padded, and with lots of Malaysian stamps on the package.  It’s a bit unusual in having a square back opening that looks like it ‘s missing a lid, but I was told that it doesn’t have one.

This is a fairly large, quite well done creamer that the seller must have thought
was a tea light holder because he sent a couple of candles with it.

This is another quite large and heavy creamer, unmarked, that came to me from Ontario.  I think she has a very guilty look on her face…maybe kicked over a lantern or something.

You may have already met the big-uddered cow on the left – it’s a Goebel, and was featured in the Brands section.  What’s interesting here are the other two, which are copies – the one in the middle from a very similar, though a bit cruder, mold; and the brown one with frosting somewhat smaller and with a few distinctive features like flat horns, but nonetheless a very close resemblance. 

The only one of these three that has any distinguishing mark is the one in the middle, and it’s stamped for Longlands Farm, Matamata, NZ.

This pair with lids both came from the UK, although the feel of the porcelain is more German. The first one I bought was sold as ‘Victorian’, which is probably about right, and the one on the right retains faint remnants of the writing in its side, “Straught fra the cou”.  The rest of these are also German – the large brown one has the incised “Germany 1498” on the lower belly, indicating that although it has no makers mark,  it’s a colored version of the Gerold Porzellan white creamer described above (this didn’t occur to me until I was writing this, then I went and closely compared them and yes they are from the same mold, as is a grey and white one shown later on) and the ones in the grass are marked “3865, Germany”.  The one in the middle with the grass base is the #3864 in the same series…sold as a ‘cow creamer’ as many other animals are, this one’s a giraffe.  

Here’s three bulls – the one on the left by Norcrest (their #K393), made in Japan.  The large middle one is also stamped for Japan, and I believe the brown one is from there also.

This is a real German beauty.  There is faint gilt writing on the front that translates as “From Hanover, Milk Cow”.  It is signed on the bottom “Deposé, Germany, ges. Gesch. (abbreviation for gesetzlich geschützt, or registered design or patent), No. 3”.

Yet three more, ranging from fancy to funny.  The realistic one on the left with the white head is fine porcelain from Seged Porcelllan, Bavaria.  The middle dappled one is made in France and comes from Lamalle of NY City, which specializes in professional cookware (their stamp is gold and bears a picture of the Eiffel Tower).  As I learned from corresponding with someone who sent me a question, identical ones were also sold by BIA Cordon Bleu (which started in 1952).  The one on the right with the bumpy white paint bears no marks.

This lovely little kneeling creamer is marked for Brad Keeler, mold #711.   From http://california-pottery-index.com we learn that he “was born in Lincoln, where his father was a ceramic engineer for the local Gladding-McBean plant. After studying art at USC Keeler opened his own Glendale studio where he created naturalistic figures of birds and animals. These were air-brush decorated and enhanced with hand-painted details. Especially popular were the flamingo figures. In the mid-forties Keeler developed a brilliant red glaze which he called Ming Dragon Blood. This lead to the development of a successful line of Chinese Modern housewares...vases, ginger jars, low bowls, smoking sets and more. Business was good enough to build a new large factory on Delay Drive in Los Angeles. While Japanese were flooding the market in the early fifties, Keeler was still expanding, building an even larger factory in San Juan Capistrano in 1952. Tragically that same year, Keeler suffered a deadly heart attack. The company couldn't survive the loss and closed its doors in 1953.”   The bidding on eBay went quite high for a small creamer, which is an indication that there must be quite a few Brad Keeler fans out there.

Finally for the browns, here are the front and back of an unusual rendition of a cow with both a milkmaid and a calf, from The Guernsey Pottery. Since it came from the UK I assume they mean the Channel Islands Gurensey, not Gurensey Ohio which also has several potteries.

Then there are purple cows…these are all from Japan, except perhaps for the little one with black feet and a yellow bell.  The one that appears in both shots seems to have a sleeping angelic calf; at least they came together via eBay, albeit the numbers they’re stamped with don’t match, nor do the flowers.

There’s even a purple version of an Elsie knock-off…

and one that appears to be trying to look like an amalgam of an old  Staffordshire creamer and the Kenmar molds from the 40’s.  It is signed by hand “JCS”, and the seller stated that he bought it directly from the maker,  “James Christian Seagraves (1913-97) [of Breiningsville, Lehigh County, PA], who like Lester Breininger,  Thomas Isaac & Russel R Stahl and Ned Foltz, was influenced by traditional 18th century PA German redware pottery.  Famous for his folk art birds, plates, whistles, etc. Circa 1960.”   Certainly a unique interpretation.

There are even a few blue creamers. The one on the left is a souvenir of Wildwood by the Sea, on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ; it was made in Japan for Arrow of Jersey City.  The sugar and creamer in the middle are copyrighted for Otagiri, Japan.  I’ve seen the dark blue one in a number of kitchen shops, and like the white ones, it’s from quite a few importers; this one is from HIC, Japan.

And there are a whole lot of blue and white creamers, not even counting the ones from Delft.  In the picture with four cows, the sitting-up creamer on the left with the dark blue horns is stamped in blue “Formalities, by Baum Bros., TM,  Made in China”(Baum Brothers Imports has marketed tableware and giftware for about 60 years; they and their companion divisions Essex Mfg and Crossroads Accessories operate out of the Empire State Building in NY); and the one with the transfer print next to it is also of very thick heavy ceramic, and most likely Chinese.  The sitting cow with the raised flower garland is marked “Country Friends” by Hallie Greer, ©1986 the Franklin Mint (founded in 1964, as an actual mink making foreign coins, medallions, casino tokens, etc, and now heavy into collectibles), and the one on the far right is actually Delft, ©D.A.I.C.  In the picture with two, the roundish guy with the big blue nose is unmarked except for the designation L316 (making me think it’s made in Japan), and the kneeling creamer has the fancy blue and gold beehive sticker of “Original Arnart Creation,  Japan”.

Here are a couple with blue shading.  The one with the brown tail tip bears the sticker of Globat Art, and was made in Japan.  The one with the pink rose garland and a smile is unmarked.

Touches of blue, in addition to the pink nose and flowers, qualifies this creamer to be here – it’s marked for Ceramica Primavera S.A. – there’s a company by that name in Juarez, Mexico, but the web provides only an address.

Two more; a rather odd caricatured of a cow with a Dutch windmill design from
Taiwan, and one with a very large head and primitive follower design of some sort.