Modern Variations

Let’s start with a repeat showing of the ones that started it all – my first cow Bessie 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. Both of these creamers are faiuirly common.

Here are two single-hole creamers that were also featured in "My Story". They were made for me and wood fired pottery by Ingrid Barnes.  Her husband and I were college classmates and fraternity brothers way back when, and I had 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 wood firing process.

This extremely interesting creamer, a hunter in a cow suit, deserves to be up front in pride of place, if for no other reasons than its uniqueness and the quality of the workmanship. It is German porcelain, likely early 20c, and I’d guess almost certainly from near Rudolstadt,  a town in the German Bundesland of Thuringia, close to the Thuringian Forest to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north, and the locale of many porcelain factories.  This is the town of the Schafer & Vater Porcelain factory – see Favorite Brands for my collection of their marvelous animal creamers – and their success seemingly inspired many other porcelain factories in the area to create similar whimsical items (or vice-versa?).  While I would like to believe that this is “S&V”, I sincerely doubt that it is one of theirs based on the paint and material, but it is certainly characteristic of the  area (as is a chicken that I bought thinking mistakenly it might be S&V).

This creamer is also sufficiently unusual that it deserves a bit of up-front attention – all glass, quite delicate, and accompanied by a glass spoon that may or may not have originally come with it. Thankfully the English lady who sold it to me packed very well.

Here is the last of the 'up front' modern cows, a winsome Exon Wemyss one by Brian Adams. It comes with a story.

Some time ago, a very lovely lying down cow creamer advertised as Wemyss Ware came up on eBay; I bid too low and lost. So I looked them up and learned from wemyssware.co.uk that “The ‘Wemyss Ware’® name has had a long and distinguished history from its beginning in 1882. It was the brainchild of Robert Heron, the Pottery owner, and Karel Nekola, a gifted decorator whom he had brought over from Bohemia. It is probably the most highly collectable and sought-after Scottish pottery, producing beautifully hand painted pottery cats, pigs, other animals, giftware, decorative tableware, tiles and limited editions, all made in Scotland… For 30 years since 1985 ‘Wemyss Ware’® has been produced by the Griselda Hill Pottery Ltd® in the Fife village of Ceres, ten miles west of St. Andrews. “ I wrote to them and asked is they had a cow creamer available, and they responded quickly that Wemyss had never made one, and it was likely that what I had seen was “Exon Wemyss Ware”. So of course, I had to investigate that.

I found the website http://wemysswarebook.com/tag/exon-wemyss/ entitled “A tribute to Brian Adams (1945-2016)” which has a long and quite fascinating story that starts by noting that “To those familiar with Wemyss Ware, Brian Adams was well known as the founder of the Exon Art Pottery in Ashcombe, Devon that produced a recreation Wemyss Ware from 1988.” To briefly summarize from that article, Brian started in government work but loved painting and pottery and by 1982 became a stilled restorer, focused on using original production techniques. The idea of producing a ‘recreation’ Wemyss was initiated by the Prince of Wales in 1987. Brian was induced to take on the project and then met Esther Weeks, the last Wemyss decorator from their old and original Bovey Pottery (now the Bovey Tracey Pottery Museum, for which Brian was restorer and curator until his death) . Together they developed the Exon Wemyss line of pottery, very like the original. In 1993 Esther moved to the Griselda Hill pottery, but between 1988 and 2005 some 2700 pieces of Exon Wemyss were produced, most decorated by Brian. In addition to my sweet-faced cabbage rose cow creamer shown here (which has a broken and repaired tail), there are versions with yellow flowers and a fly on top, as well as one with horns…for which I will be searching.

To put at least a modicum of order into the large number of creamers in this category, let’s sort some of them by color - starting with plain white, if for no other reason than that seemed to be the favorite for ‘new’ cow creamers being offered at the end of the 20c and the start of the 21c (by 2012 or so, plain colors started to be more in style though white is still popular).  I have learned that Chuck Williams, who founded Williams-Sonoma in 1956 and was known as an innovator, takes credit for having started the white cow-creamer ‘fad’ in the US.  To quote a 2004 article about him in USA Today, “Williams recalls the 1960s trip to France when he spied the whimsical piece — only it was covered with colored pieces and featured the city's crest on the cow's flank….’I said to someone that if I could only just get it in white, I could probably sell it in the United States,’ he says. ‘Well, they said that was impossible; they were only made as local souvenirs. …Well, I got them in white. We sold thousands right away.’" Here’s another quote, from a tag on a white cow creamer found in a Williams-Sonoma store in 2015: "Chuck's Find: William-Sonoma founder Chuck Williams first spotted this whimsical creamer at Apilco's Paris showroom in 1960. Chuck fell for the simple yet charming cow shape, and it became one of the first pieces of Apilco French porcelain that William-Sonoma ever carried."  So, here on the left is an Aplico creamer (marked for them), on the right a recent one marked for Williams-Sonoma.

Well, it turns out Chuck isn’t a complete white purist, because here’s a Williams-Sonoma marked creamer with flowers.  Nor it seems was Chuck terribly worried about exclusivity, because here is a pair (yes, with black spots) from Pier 1 from the identical mold (and likely the same manufacturer) as the W-S one pictured above.

Chuck Williams was certainly right however about the popularity of white cow creamers. Almost every kitchen shop and department store sells some version of the ‘plain white’ cow creamer. Most of the cows in these 'herd' shots are unmarked and many of them look alike with minor variations, but a few deserve a bit of a mention. It the picture on the left, the cow on the far right was made in China for Fox Run, a gift shop in Deep River, CT. Next to it is a cow marked for "Porcelaine de France"; there are a number of these with gold embellishments and transfer pictures on the Advertising and Souvenirs page. In the middle picture, the one in the center front is one of Chuck's Williams-Sonoma Market Place creamers, and on the far right one of the many, often decorated with flowers or birds, from Cordon Bleu. In the third picture, on the far back left is a cow creamer from Limoghes, next to a kneeling one from Fitz & Floyd.

Two more plain white cow creamers here flank a kneeling version with a handle that has black hooves, horn tips, and eyes

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, and there are a couple Delft painted and marker version of this White Magoc cow on that page.

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.

The rather stout cow with legs in an awkward position is marked “The Cellar Whiteware, Made in China Exclusively for Macy’s”, which is where I bought it on sale for $5.99…their current version of the ‘plain white cow creamer’.  Neither of the other two are marked, but the cream colored one facing to the right bears a striking resemblance to some of my Czechoslovakian and Austrian cows.  It’s not unusual to find that a factory will produce plain white glazed versions of their otherwise colored wares. The only strange thing about the little gal on the right is that she has only three teats. 

Here on the left is another example of a plain white version of a creamer that also comes in a variety of colors. Although unmarked, it’s mold 5540 from Coventry and there are several others from that company and mold in a variety of colors on these pages.  The middle one is bisque, i.e. biscuit fired, ready for paint and glaze.  There’s a version in black and white with its sugar mate on the sugars and creamers page. I believe these come from one of those ‘do it yourself’ pottery craft stores.  The one on the right is marked “Studio Nova, www.studionova.com, KT513 Farm Cow, Fine Porcelain, China”.

Many creamers come from China these days – a number of years ago they took over from Japan as the principle maker of mass produced and relatively inexpensive ceramics.  However the Chinese are also capable of producing beautiful high quality pieces, and did so particularly in the days of the emperors.  Here is one example, said to be 19c Qing dynasty.  It has a broken horn and is missing its lid, but is nonetheless a beautifully crafted piece of Blanc de Chine – which (per Wikipedia’s description) is “the traditional European term for a type of white Chinese porcelain, made at Dehua in the Fujian province, otherwise known as Dehua porcelain or similar terms. It has been produced from the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) to the present day. Large quantities arrived in Europe as Chinese Export Porcelain in the early 18th century and it was copied at Meissen and elsewhere. It was also exported to Japan in large quantities.”

Two more from different countries – the French ‘lait’ cow with the very awkwardly stretched out front leg is marked for Porcelaine du Berry…obviously the ‘porcelaine’ slumped a bit in the kiln.  The cream luster cow with gold on the tail and horns is also porcelain, and I believe early 20c German. 

Another French cow, this one nicely modeled with a very large tail loop, It’s one of the largest of my many white cows creamers, ~ 10 ¼” long.

This unmarked one with wide legs and large jowls came to me from the UK – seems there’s always another plain white cow creamer from a different mold.

The little square creamer on the box was made in Barcelona, Spain – but I bought it from a company in England that mailed it from Germany. So I guess you could say it’s a  European mongrel.  Balvi is a large European design house that since 1963 has produced all kinds of housewares and gift items. They made a very interesting small cow. The little striding striding cow came from The Country Cupboard in Fairford, Gloucestershire England. They were founded in 1997 by Mike ans Alison Godsal and purvey a range of china, glass and tableware, as well as offrering restoration services. The little standing up forlorn one with the cold paint black eyes and gold bell is of unknown provenance, but from the nature of the paint is likely Japanese and has some age to it.

This well formed bisqee cow is wearing three little blue flowers on her horns with a fourth just behing them. No marks, tiny teats.

This stubby white cow creamer with splatter-holed spots (looks like someone hit it with bird shot) is from Transpac of Vacaville, CA, whose motto seems to be "Every day is a holiday". Their website proudly states"Transpac is an industry leader in gift, seasonal, and home and garden decor products. With more than 15,000 customers worldwide, Transpac designs and distributes consumer products throughout the independent retailer channel and national retail chains. We maintain showrooms in Atlanta, Dallas and Las Vegas as well as agency showrooms in Pennsylvania and Denver.". They seem to have some of their things - at least this cow - made in China. Interesting and unusual design.

This is one of the weirder caricatures I’ve seen. It has a couple raised places near the bottom, so perhaps there’s a colored version around somewhere. The UK seller couldn’t tell me who made it, but she did recount that it came from the estate of Merlewood House in Torquay where it was a kitchen item in the part of the house that was used as a B&B. So, presumably it has been seen and used by quite a few folks.

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 white 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 seem to be 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. BIA has made umpteen white cow creamers with decorations, and it's simply not of any interest to me to try for a full sweep.

More white cows with flower decorations – the one on top left with the bird is French, a gift from friends; the one with butterflies and the brilliant floral display on legs and haunch is German - © C. Pabst of Paperproducts Design GmbH, Am Hambuch, Meckenheim (Per their web site "the leading supplier of unique German-printed paper tableware and beautiful coordinating accessories"); and the two on the right with flower-like patterns all over are from Nordstrom’s department store – they sell cow creamers from this mold in a variety of patterns – and very likely made in China.The one below on the left is entitled "Dog Wood by Heygill"; it's porcelain and made in Japan. I find its decorations particularly lovely. To its right is a nice porcelain creamer marked for "KPM" under a crown, and signed and dated by by the decorator, "Anna Smith'84:. From realorrepro.com we learn that "The letters KPM can trace their ancestry back to 1763 when they were first used by the Konigliche Porzellan Manufacktur (Royal Porcelain Manufactory) in Meissen. By 1825, the same letters were beginning to be used by the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in Berlin. There have been fakes and look-alike marks almost since the start of original production...The letters KPM probably appear in more marks used after 1925 than in marks before 1925. By the 1950s, KPM was used to imply a sense of quality, prestige and age rather than any specific company. Many of the new KPM marks ... also include place names such as Bavaria and Germany which do not appear in early marks. Since the original mark was never registered, it is legal today for reproduction wholesalers to continue using the letters KPM on new pieces imported from China, Japan and Indonesia." Is this cow really KPM? Beats me but it's nice and well,painted, also fairly new so I don't have to worry about getting stuck with an old fake.

This white cow from the German company Paperproducts Design GMBH is displaying 'Examoles of Different Measures". If your eyes are better than mine and you have talent that I lack you might even be able to play them. It came in a clear plastic box wiuth a sticker on top that assicns the copywrite to Carola Pabst. On the Bei Mir zu Haus web site she tells us "... I was born in Stade in 1961. Today I live as a freelance illustrator with Alfie and Minou, a Savannah and Toyger cat, in beautiful Neckergemünd near Heidelberg. Through my studies in jewelry design at the University of Applied Sciences for Design in Schwäbisch Gemünd, I was able to give my drawing ambitions a form that over time led to my career as a freelance illustrator. My curiosity arouses in me again and again the need to go new ways, to experiment and to dare to do new things."

This happy cow with dainty yellow flowers – actually a satire of a creamer because it has no mouth hole – comes from the firm of John Beswick and family. She (Dausy) and her relatives with flowers of different colors are on the Favorite Brands page, but this one came along later and I thought it deserved a place here as well. The Beswick firm was established in 1892 and was noted for high quality figurines, over the years including dogs, cats, farm and wild animals, and later Beatrix Potter and then Disney characters. In 1969 Beswick was sold to Royal Doulton which continued to produce Beswick products until 2002, but with their own backstamp starting in 1989. In 2004 the Beswick name and design rights were sold off to Dartington Crystal, which continues to produce some figurines as well as vases under the Beswick name. This cow, ‘Daisy the Cow Creamer’, model 2792, was made under head designer Graham Tongue during the Doulton era. It was produced from 1983 to 1989, and thus bears the Beswick name. The Beswick 2014 Price Guide by Harvey May gives its value as $85-140. Why ‘Daisy’ when the little flowers look more like roses is beyond me – but then this was part of the ‘Farmyard Humor’ collection so perhaps that, as well as the lack of a mouth hole, was intended to be part of the humor.

Here’s another take on the flowered white creamer – from a different mold and with the further embellishment of gold horns.  It’s from Gracie China by Coastline Imports, and was made (surprise!) in China.  I can’t fine anything about Gracie China on the web, but Coastline Imports, headquartered in City of Industry, CA, advertises itself as “a leading wholesale distributor of quality imported tableware including fine bone china, fine porcelain and ceramic kitchenware. Its importing operations provide a steady supply of well recognized traditional and contemporary tableware offered at competitive prices directly to retail stores.”

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.

White cows with flowers also come from Mexico. In this case, "Sta MA" (which I imagine is an abbreviation of Santa Maria") of Cuernavava. A google search tells us that "Cuernavaca is the lush capital of Mexico’s Morelos state, cradled by the Tepozteco Mountains south of Mexico City. The colonial city center features the 16th-century Palace of Cortés, former home of Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés and now a history museum with murals by Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Just southwest is Cuernavaca Cathedral, in a 1500s walled monastery complex with a mural depicting Mexico’s first saint." Wikipedia adds that it's only a 90 minute drive south of Mexico City and thus provides a welcome respite from the huge city. I also have two creamer and sugar sets by this pottery, shown on that page.

This green and white creamer is an interpretation by Eve Taylor, or so it says on its side.  I have been unable to locate any information about her.

It's not hard to locate information on the lady for which this large and brightly flowered cow is stamped: "Paula Deen, Store Collection" (made in China), known for her "Southern" cooking. Wikipedia tells us "Paula Ann Hiers Deen (born January 19, 1947) is an American TV personality and cooking show host. Deen resides in Savannah, Georgia, where she owns and operates The Lady & Sons restaurant and Paula Deen's Creek House with her sons, Jamie and Bobby Deen. She has published fifteen cookbooks. Though married since 2004 to Michael Groover, she uses the last name Deen, from her first marriage." She has received criticism over time for racial slurs and excessive use of sugar although she claims to be a "natural food: advocate."

This is a rather fascinating older creamer, that I acquired after being asked about it by someone who had looked for assistance on this web page.  The basic shape is fairly normal, but it’s made of a very dense ceramic with a black thin base layer, and is filled both below and in the circle usually made by the tail.   I’m afraid I was able to offer the UK seller no real assistance, other than rescuing it from a boot sale.

This interesting 'Made in Germany' cow has a quite unusual large nouth. It had sort of a familiar look to its face, so I set it next to one that's shown both on the Places page and in the area of German cows on Modern Variations page 3, where I note that it could win an ugle prize. I can't be sure they were both from the same pottery, but then I would assume that not toomany folks would form a cow's mouth like this.

This cute ‘farm fresh’ creamer comes from Grassland Roads (“Gifts that Inspire”), a specialty gift division started in 1999 by Amscan, Inc, which was founded in 1947 and per its web site “is the largest designer, manufacturer, and distributor of decorated party goods and party accessories in the world”. 

Some white creamers 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.

The flowers on this kneeling cow, which appears to be closely related to the Arnart one above, aren’t raised, but the creamer is nicely detailed.  It has “Italy” written on the bottom.

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 same 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 big chef’s hat sugar bowl, that I didn’t bother to picture).  I show some of them in more detail below, but wanted to start this area with herd shots.

There are of course ‘transition’ colored creamers, i.e. available as either white or black and white, generally of the modern inexpensive sort that are widely available in kitchen stores. Here are three examples, all from essentially the same mold. The black and while ones (also available as plain white) are marked “Porcelain exclusively for Pier 1 Imports, China”, and cost $5. The white one is stamped “Williams-Sonoma Marketplace” and sold (a year earlier) for $6.99. The puzzles here are how Pier 1 can claim exclusivity for something being purveyed by one of its competitors, and why Williams- Sonoma thinks their name is worth $1.99 more than Pier 1’s for the same item…admittedly, only a collector like me would be suckered into buying both. These three are also pictured and discussed near the start of the 'white' area.

This little black and white guy is embellished with a deep purple udder. Pretty obvious where she came from – on the back of the package there is a short description of porcelain (‘a hard, fine-grained nonporous white ceramic material that is extremely durable’) and the logo for the manufacturer, RPI or Resourceful Products, Inc, of Belmor NJ…although not surprisingly, it was Made in China. Fair enough I guess, since that’s where porcelain was first developed.

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

These three unmarked holsteins featuring the heads with no other body oarts came together – they’re a cup, a sugar (head hiding behing the knob on the lid), 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 cow 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.

In the left picture are 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. In the righthand shot, the cow on the left is signed by LL Bell, 2015, and is distinguished by having an extra hole on top of its head, The roundish one in the middle came as a father's day present to me in 2004 from my wife - she got it in Reykjavik, Iceland (and we have another one that we bought in Helsinki). Although not marked, I have seen a similar one on eBay marked for Kammer, Thuringia German. The one on the right is unmarked, but came to me from Canada.

Yet more black and white cow creamers, 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.

Three quite different black and white creamers – the only one with any marks is the small sitting-up one in the middle.  It is stamped for “Frutuoso, Made in Portugal”.  I have an identical one marked for “Reducta, London”, as well as a couple very similar plain white ones, so this must be from a very common mold.

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.

I debated about whether to put this unmarked bluebird-bearing black and white cow here or in the watering can page, but she’s only about 4” tall and wouldn’t be very functional unless you wanted to water only one small plant at a time. So I guess someone was just being whimsical – it’s my only ‘cow cream sprinkler’.

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 cow with the pink ribbon, yellow bell and small yellow horns is interesting because of the fly on its rump.  Many of my silver cows have the traditional fly on the lid, but this is the only modern ceramic cow creamer I have seen so decorated. The diamond mark on the belly is illegible so I have no idea when or where it may have been crafted.  The little one with a light green collar and grass fill below is unmarked, but the larger one with the crest is quite obviously from the medieval Swiss town of Gruyeres, famous for its cheese and voted the most beautiful village in western Switzerland in 2014.

Three more unmarked little black and white cows that don’t have much to say for themselves.  The pudgy one on the right with black head and back and stubby legs was a birthday present from my son – a duplicate though he wasn’t aware of that because my first one was still in its box.  The box does have some information: ‘ Made in China for MCS Highland Park IL,  A bunch of web searches indicates that the MCS (also known as MCS USA) initials seem to stand for Marketing, Commerce and Service, the company was founded in 1990, it has either 4 or 10 employees and one or more of three addresses in that town, and either provides consulting and support like its name says or imports ‘durable goods’ presumably like this cow; but also that its largest import in the last year or so has been coffee from Brazil, which I believe is where its President comes from. Its web site no longer functions – so it remains somewhat of a mystery, at least to me.

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.

When this came up on eBay (from the UK) I didn't have long to wonder because the artist (actually semi-artist) has described it as: “Handsculpted ceramic Two Norwich Terrier Dogs and Cow Creamer by the artist/seller Mary Ellen Smith. Artist signed and dated on the bottom of the piece by name and year 2007 is on the bottom. This piece has been fired two times in a high temperature kiln. Permanent colors are kiln fired on for a permanent high gloss glazed finish. Measurements of the cow creamer are approximately 7 1/2" length. The handmade ceramic terriers have been kiln fired onto a store bought brand new James Herriot Cow Creamer.” I can only wonder if Mary Ellen does indeed have holsteins as well as Norwich Terriers.

These two also arrived from the UK, albeit the one on the left bears a German saying, so apparently someone brought it from the continent. Neither has any marks. The seller said 'vintage' but that can mean just about anything, and they are certainly late 20c.

This lovely creamer is very definitely British. It is stamped “Fairmont & Main, Down on the Farm, “LULU” Creamer, hand decorated with love & care”. Their website, Fairmont.co.uk, states that “Fairmont & Main Limited was established in 1994 by Philip and Glennis Harrison with a commitment to offering our customers good quality tableware, greater value and excellent service. During the last twenty years we have done just that and in the process established ourselves as a trusted and well-respected tableware brand.”  I naturally checked, and neither “Lulu” nor “Down on the Farm” are still on offer.

Three of these were featured as typically British on the Places page. Here on the left is from Tony Wood Studios, that we bought in Camden Passage, Islington, in 1998. The one on the right with less distinctine featrures is unmarked - but as it stated on the Places page, this is a popular foprm that was made by all kinds of folkks. It must have been an early acquisition because I didn't even note where I got it or what I paid for it.

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 countries).  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. She’s not alone, however…check out her cousins on the ‘Sugar and Creamers’ page.

A simple black and white cow with a blue fluffy neck piece sitting happily on the grass...Made in China of course.

Here is Sakura, Inc’s Made in China Animal Collection pitcher, © Warren Kimble. Sakura makes consumer dinnerware for sale through department stores, mass merchandisers, and private labels, and was acquired by Oneida Ltd (for $40M! I guess they must make more than cows) in 2000. Poking around on the web, I found there were a lot of companies using the name sakura…not surprising, I’d guess, since it’s the Japanese word for cherry trees and their blossoms (it’s thus also popular in anime and manga). Warren Kimble is a folk artist from Brandon, VT, and you can learn all about him at his web site. He draws big bodied cows with little heads. The one on the right used to be black and white like the others, but my son though it might be fun to give me a camoflauged one (albeit my days weariung camy are well past).

Another unusual interpretation, wide and stocky. Apparently meant to be dearly loved however, from the heart-shaped spots.

This nicely fashioned mostly black cow with some white patches bears a faded sticker from Brinn’s, Pittsburgh, PA. It was ‘Made in Japan’, I believe in the late 1950’s, but for sure after the quality of Japanese export ceramics had significantly improved after WWII. 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 just a nice simple unmarked interpretation – mostly black but with a dab of white, white hooves, and a very orange udder.

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”.  Stettin is now actually Szczecin, capital of the West Pomeranian Volvodeship in Poland, near the Baltic Sea and the German border. As a Slavic Pomeranian stronghold since the 8C, it has had quite a varied history under a number of today's nations.. This lovely souvenir could have just as easily fit in the Ads and Souveniers section, but I wanted to put a couple of these very fine early 20c transfer picture souvenir creamers here as examples in case you haden't checked that page yet.

Here’s a companion piece, again lovely German porcelain with an early transfer print, a souvenir of Ostseebad GrossMöllen, Westliche Dunenpromenade. It’s marked for “Verkatattenarbalk” … whatever that is. GrossMöllen is a seaside resort now called Mielno, on a promontary between the Baltic Sea and Lake Jamunder.

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.

This rather large and rotund lidded creamer is also German, or so I was assured by the seller because it came from the estate of a German lady who had just moved into a nursing home, and apparently had only German items. 

This unmarked cow with blue eyelids, floppy ears and yellow funny horns seems to be quite happy, albeit she has lost the very tip of her tail. She's my first addition of 2020, and came from Kentucky as quite a bargain ($2.25)

This is a very cute but unmarked modern creamer that came to me from Lancanshire UK

Many black and white cow creamers have other touches of color, or decorations of some kind. The one on the far left is standing in gress, and its companion with the round pink nose has a little duck by its side. It's from Certifird International Corporation, made in Taiwan. In the right picture, on the left is a fancy cow from Young's Exclusive dated 1999 and made in China. The one in the far right is unusual in that it was made in Brazil.

Pointy red tiny horns, orangish nose and inside ears, brown hooves, and altogether well formed, like those just above filled below with green and grasses. But...Russian! I guess some of the more modern Russian potteries and ceramacists are getting into the wider game. Had this not come from a lady from Volgoda who had previously sold me a couple neat teapots I'd wonder - but there is a mark onthe base, albeit indistinguishable, so I'm thinking that maybe we can expect more from here.

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.

Transitioning from black to brown, here are two very large beautifully molded, realistic German porcelain creamers, with the number ‘3’ impressed on their bellies but no other markings.  There are some similar to these but smaller in the German ‘herd’ in the Places theme, and a number of other fine German creamers on Page 3 of this theme.  I have never been able to identify the maker of most of these – somewhere there has to be an expert on German porcelain who could help…I hope.

BROWN (AND BROWN AND WHITE) COWS come in a wide variety of tones and shading.  This is an international herd, with representatives from the US, Japan, and Europe.

Leading off the brown section, here is one of my two cow creamers hand made and decorated by James Christian Seagraves (1913-1997). There is little doubt about when or where it was made since he kindly advertised all that in big raised letters. The person who sold me the other cow creamer I have of his (it's on page 2) bought it directly from him and noted that "like Lester Breininger, Thomas Isaac & Russel R Stahl and Ned Foltz, {he] was influenced by traditional 18th century PA Gerrman redware pottery. " I had difficulty finding anything else about him on the web, but two other mambers of the extended Seagraves family (they run a web site devoted to learning more about the Seagraves clan) kindly provided a bit of information and a copy of his obituary. From these I learned that his work was principally as a machinist for American Procucts and Chemicals in Trexlertown, PA. He was a locally well respectred 'folk artist' potter mostly known for his sgraffito redware and bird and fish whistles. His obituarty nores that he also made violins while in his late teens and 20s and he was a member of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen. I have two cow creamers very similar to his (which are inscribed "JCS") by "VAS". I believe this to be his second wife, Verna Alice (Maerkeffer) Seagraves.

While combing the web for information about him I also found a bit about Breiningsville which is in eastern PA on Wickipedia: "Breinigsville was named for George Ludwig Breinig (January 31, 1733 – May 12, 1812), a German immigrant who came to America on board the ship Lydia, arriving in Philadelphia on October 13, 1749. He originally settled in Weisenberg Township (tax records show he was assessed 9 pounds in 1762). On May 10, 1771, Breinig purchased around 100 acres (40 ha) of land and a stone dwelling for 700 pounds from Peter and Catherine Trexler (of "Trexlertown") along "the great road leading to Philadelphia" He resided on that land until his death...Among his seven children was Peter Breinig, the youngest son, and the founder of Breinigsville, who owned a 123-acre (50 ha) farm. He built a tavern in the village and operated it for some years. As in most early towns, the tavern served as the center of the community. Today, the tavern is in the location of the Breinigsville Hotel...Throughout the 19th century, the economy of Breinigsville was primarily agriculture and mining. A number of large mines existed; the mines and later the train tracks were abandoned. In the early 1900s the town was transformed into a mainly agriculture-based economy. Toward the late 1970s and 80s due to relatively cheaper land prices and close proximity to New York, a number of major distributors and warehouses have relocated to the area...A number of large book publishing companies also operate from Breinigsville. Amazon's distribution warehouse is situated in Breinigsville. The town has a number of large vineyards...and the town is also the home to a major Samuel Adams brewery." Busy little place! But nothing in the article about Mr. or Mrs. Seagraves..

I love handmade cows with character. This one is brown and white but also sports a mangnificent up-front pink udder and big googly eyes. It seems to be saying 'Oh, dear..." or something of the sort with its hooves to its face. There is a signature scratched into the bottom but I cant make it out well enohgh to try to say what the nbame is.

Here are three small Japanese creamers (the two on the right also 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. From photos available on Google, it appears they imported a whole lot of small ceramic geegaws from Japan.

Occasionally I make an interesting ‘find’ when I least expect it. My wife and I stopped in Oxford, Maine to buy wool for her rug braiding, and in the back room of an antique shop across the street (my treat for bearing up with the wool buying) were these two old, sort of dirty, brown unglazed cow creamers. They looked familiar, and when I got home and could do some comparisons, it turns out that they are very similar in shape and expression (down to the curly tails) to this idiosyncratic early Japanese creamer (it is shown along with larger and smaller versions on the ‘Places’ page). I’m sure they have an interesting history…wish I knew what it was!

No sooner did I buy the unglazed creamers shown above, that up on eBay came the little brown guy in this picture… same mold, but with a simple shiny brown glaze and red nostrils and lips. He’s shown here for comparison with two somewhat similar – but from very different molds - versions of the large Japanese curly-tail.

Also from Japan are these two from Thames, with their characteristic flat noses and balls on the top of their horns. They are fashioned from red clay. There is a larger head creamner with a bucket sugar on the sugar and creamers page - that should really have featured the standing cow here that's the real mate to the bucket, but I screwed up making the pictures and am not about to go back and fix my error!

Three unusual brown ones…the seller of the one with the big flat nose on the left  indicated it was from “COUNTERPOINT”, San Francisco, and Made in Japan. The little one in the middle is also almost certainly from Japan.  The strange little egg-shaped brown English cow on the right is unmarked, but I have seen an identical one (as well as a grey version) on offer that had “Rector’s Pottery” incised on its belly. I haven’t been able to find anything about them about except for their address, which is Greenway, Caulcott, Bicester OX25 4NF (which I found in an add for a property sale).

Here is a better view of a pair of the small brown cows that are similar to the one in the middle above.

Both of these have a bit of age to them – they also both came with previously broken but nicely repaired legs, and neither are marked. The dark brown one is from the UK and was said to be ‘rustic Victorian’.  I think that may not be an inapt description since it does seem to be a relatively early version of the simple standing cow creamer that started to come into fashion in England about that time. 

This rather forlorn looking large and sturdy brown and white cow with floppy ears, orange udder  and blue eyes with prominent eyelashes arrived from NY with no indication of age or maker.

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.

While we're in the mood for cows from US companies (even if made in China like this one) here is a smiling brown and white version with ts eyes closed from Pier 1 Imports.

This one is about as American as one can get (for a Made in China cow that is). It came with a Big tag trhat on the front reads "Red Shed Home & Gifts - rusic-vintage-classic" and on the back notes that it wa distributed by the Tractor Supply Company of Brentwood, TN. A cow from a tractor company? That sent me to the web where I found that "Tractor Supply Company (NASDAQ: TSCO), the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the United States, has been passionate about serving its unique niche, targeting the needs of recreational farmers, ranchers and allthose who enjoy living the rural lifestyle, for more than 80 years." and "Red Shed is a brand that celebrates the modern Tractor Supply customer, the lifestyle they have so proudly built and the inviting farmhouse feel they've created at home" OK I guess than makes sense...recreational farmers do like cows, albeit this one had disappeared from its shop when I checked just now.

This cute little caricature – sort of white with brown and black markings – has “Italy, 559/B” written on her belly. It came to me from the UK.

There’s a bit of a story here. When I bought the little creamer on the right it came with a broken tail, so I contected the seller who  - after a friendly  exchange of emails - sent me another direct from Pataling Jaya, Selkangor, Malaysia.   It has a squarish fill hole but no lid, and when I inquired I was told it didn’t have one.  Well, some 7 ½ years later up pops the little guy on the left that’s quite similar albeit made with what I believe to be a different but quite similar mold. It does have a lid, but came to me from a much less exotic place – North Carolina. 

Here are two that are mottled brown and grey, with different surface heights for the two colors.  The chap who sold me the one without legs must have thought it was a tea light holder because he sent a couple candles along with it.  The darker brown caricature with the big ears (and no horns or eyes) bears a tag for “Creative Co-Op Inc, Memphis TN 38141, Made in China”; their web site says they’re a wholesale to the trade design company founded around 2003, with the motto “Designed by us ~ Inspired by you”.  I found this cow on Amazon’s web site. I guess those folks do indeed sell just about anything these days!

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 Favorite 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).

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The cow standing in grass in the left hand picture is marked “3865, Germany”.  Its spotted companion with the long neck is #3864 and is undoubtedly from the same series and maker; although sold as a ‘cow creamer’ as many other animals are, it's pretty obviously a giraffe.  I hadn't realized it until recently, but I also have a couple of miniature cow creamwers similarly marked for Germany that seem to bear a strong family resemblance to the #3865 cow. What tipped me off was when many years later I got a middle sized one marked as a "Present from Symonds Yat" (descrived on the Advertising and Souvenirs page). It's not marked for Germany but that's likely because it was made to be sold in Britain as as a souvenir from the Royal Forest of Dean .

On the left is a lovely and well equipped brown and white bull by Norcrest of Japan, their #K393. Its companion, a brown unmarked bull, is most likely also from Japan.

This is a heavy ceramic bull caricature, made by Tommie Bond of the Lexington (MA) Arts and Crafts Society. She sold it as a ‘bank’, but I know better! Those puckered lips look primed for cream.

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”.

These two would appear to be from the same mold, but the one on the left is marked for Austria, and the one on the right for Germany. Perchance from the same factory at different periods of history?

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 mottled brown caricature which came from Ontario (though I doubt it was made there) has two distinctive features – the uncomfortable large udder and, of all things, a small green fish inside, looking back out the fill hole.  Somebody had a rather weird idea about cow chow (Icelandic horses eat fish, but I don’t know of any cows that do).

Here’s one only a mother (or a crazy collector) could love – it’s hand made from very heavy clay and came from HandmadeHollows which is in Chicago.

This one looked familiar when I went to buy it so I hesitated and did some checking – it turns out it’s a plain brown version of the white creamer with lots of decorations that’s about 6 sections down in Sugars and Creamers. Like its doppelganger it’s unmarked so I have no information about it.

Three more, all unmarked but older and acquired from the UK. The light tan one with the red on ears, tail and lid knob is quite unusual in that it has a cork stopper on the lid.

This delightful small creamer also came to me from the UK. It's unmarked but I’d guess it's 19c and from Germany or elsewhere on the continent from the style and the thickness of the base. It’s a lovely and unusual example of an early 1-person size creamer, and obviously very different from the English creamers in vogue at the time. It is also shown on the Miniatures page next to a similar but darker version

There are a bunch of brown and cream ‘Jersey’ cows marked for the island in the Advertising section, but I thought I’d show these three – from very similar molds but distinctly different sizes – here. The larger and smaller ones are unmarked, but the middle one’s belly bears the impressed mark of an oval with “N.J.” inside; it also has the word JERSEY impressed, not just printed, on both sides.  All three came from the UK.  The seller of the middle one attributed it to Mervyn and Nelys Jude, but could offer no further help…a web search places a Nelys Jude in Oswestry, and a Mervyn Jude in Dereham. There may of course be others, or different dates, or… There is beer mug attributed to two folks by those names in the Auckland Museum, but the Kiwis date it to the 18c.  Mervyn Jude is also noted as an English artist, apparently mostly painting horse races like the Grand National, judging from ones sold at auction in the 1970s.  Per usual I’d enjoy hearing more info on this mysterious but talented couple.  They did make a nice cow creamer.

Meet Peppy the Cow. In some ways Peppy is a very ordinary, if nice, little cow. There’s a white version of her featuring Washington DC in the Advertising section, and I have other creamers like her – although not shown – from Michigan, Virginia, Houston, the Grand Ole Opry, and even Germany. She’s very popular for souvenirs, and appears frequently on eBay.

In another way though, Peppy is a very special little cow. Oli Fowler, a BA student in Graphic Design at Camberwell College of the Arts in London, picked her up at a charity shop in Walthamstow as part of a university project; the task was to buy and research a charity shop object that caught his eye, render it in drawings, paint, digital, etc, and tell its story past and future. As part of his research Oli came across this web page and that started a fun conversation. Oli probably learned more about cow creamers than he really wanted to know! So naturally enough when he put Peppy up on eBay to let her continue her travels, I had to acquire her. Oli was kind enough to include one of his many excellent drawings along with Peppy. They now form a proud and happy part of my collection. Peppy has indeed gotten around quite a bit, and it’s nice to know a bit of her history. I sure hope Oli got a good grade!

These lovely little kneeling creamers are 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 such small creamers, 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.

These Japanese purple beauties all have raised flowers.  The two standing up have the mold stamp “B876”, one in red and the other in green. 

This one came complete with angelic calf…not old enough to have two holes but I couldn’t bring myself to separate it from its mother.

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

This is an inexpensive post-WWII Japanese creamer, accompanied by salt and pepper shakers . I assume a sugar bowl was lost or broken somewhere along the way.

There are even a few blue cow creamers. The one on the left here ia a souvenir of "Wildwood by the Sea, On the Boardwalk, Jersey City, NJ"; it was made in Japan for Arrow of Jersey City.  In the middle is one from the same mold,  a souvenir of “Fabulous Las Vegas”. It came as a  birthday present from my son and daughter in law (although they have never been to Las Vegas, they jnst knew I liked coiw creamers ).   This is quite a popular mold for souvenir cows dating from the latter part of 20c. I’ve seen the dark blue one in a number of kitchen shops, and like its white cousins, it’s from quite a few makers and importers; this one is from HIC, Japan.

Now, this one is REALLY blue, and blue all over inside and out.  It’s also a rather unusual caricature, but seems perfectly happy.  It’s unmarked, but the seller said that it’s likely Dryden, and from a bit of searching it does seem to resemble their style.  From the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture (or from Kansapedia of the Kansas Historical Society) we learn that “Dryden Pottery was founded in Kansas by A. James Dryden, who relocated his business to Hot Springs (Garland County) in 1956. Dryden Pottery has become collectible and has been listed in Schroeder’s Antique Guide for many years….” plus a whole lot more.  My wife and I recently visited Hot Springs National Park, and can understand the attraction to a potter – both a good local source of clay and talc, and lots of potential customers from the myriads of folks who came to visit the hot springs. Sort of like the Brits did in the previous century – make nice but reasonably inexpensive things that folks would like for a souvenir of their vacation.

Here is a lovely, small and fairly modern English lidded creamer, the only one of its type I have seen. It has an impressed mark for “Cheddar Pottery” as well as a triangular sticker with a tower on a hill over script “Carefully made in Somerset England”. It turns out that Cheddar Pottery is a Grade II listed Building  on Cufic Lane, Cheddar, Somerset - “Two cottages, now pottery and shop. Early C19”, according to its listing.  The town has a web site, www.cheddarvillage.org.uk, that notes that its distinguishing feature is Britain’s largest gorge.  Even more fascinating to me however is the following: “The global origin of the word Cheddar comes from over a thousand years ago when the English village was originally referred to as “che-dwr”,  a combination of English and Gaelic terms which became the “Cheddar” village name we know today. If domain names had existed back then, cheddar.org would have rightly belonged to the village elders (nowadays it’s being cyber-squatted by a domain re-sale agent, but that’s another story)…The cheese made using the process which originated here is the second meaning of the word. And in modern slang the word “cheddar” can also mean money or wealth, and also a way of scoring a goal in football. There is also a mobile productivity “app” called Cheddar, and there is a popular word game called “Cheddar Gorge”.   Quite a nice etymology lesson from this tiny cow.

It turns out that the little 'Cheddar" cow creamer above isn't really unique. This little blue version whth whimsical decorations comes from a similar mould but has no lid and turned up on Etsy a few years later. It was not only sold but made by Charlotte Manser of "Charlottes Ceramic Arts" (web site Charlotte Manser Ceramics) of Swindon, UK. She said she made it for her "Pride 2019" collection, and that she bought the mould from someone whe lived very near Somerset and the Cheddar Pottery...so perhaps it is a near relative. Whatever, since it was made for Pride UK, this apparently is a 'gay' cow...so one wonders how it ever got to the point of making milk. Another one of those mysteries of life I guess.

This is another unusual one, pretty obviously one of a kind, and handmade from very heavy clay. Written inside it says, "Caro, Her Cow". The seller claimed it was Amnerican 19c folk art, and indeed it likely is. It is certainly unique, and nicely molded, painted and glazed.

Here are a couple with light 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.

Three more: a rather odd caricature of a cow with a Dutch windmill design from Taiwan, an unmarked one with a very large head and primitive flower design of some sort, and a rather cute smiling cow, unmarked but  decorated with flowers, with its horns and ears melded.

This is “Blue Bliss”, © Susan Winget for Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, Made naturally enough in China.

This is ‘Ditsy Cow’ from Sur la Table of Brownsburg, IN.  Why 2?  Well, I ordered one and forgot about it, then ordered another when it went on sale.  They also have a plain white one, but I opted for the version with little blue flowers (both times).

Hard to know where to put this one, but in spite of its typical ‘Staffordshire’ shape it doesn’t appear to have much age so I decided to let its blue flowers dictate.  I actually bought it just for the humor of the lid, which is obviously a replacement – someone had a lot of fun adding the rather large and fierce fly.