Pottery purchases

Yesterday my daughter and I braved the searing Texas heat and horrific traffic conditions to drive 150 miles (241 km) to buy West German pottery we had seen on Craigslist. Our trip turned into a bumper-to-bumper nightmare of moving at a snail's pace and then stopping, until my daughter...who has even less patience than I do...left the freeway for roads less traveled.

As frustrating as the trip turned out to be, it yielded a mother lode of fat lava, the likes of which I've never been able to mine in one place before. It turned out that the seller and her husband had lived in Germany for two years and had apparently purchased every piece they ever ran across at a flea market, because what was shown in the Craigslist ad only represented the ones she was willing to part with. She was displaying what she considered "the good stuff" in her house, and her attic was full as well.

In spite of their castoff status, my daughter and I found several of the Craigslist pieces to be very nice indeed, and we brought  several bags full of pottery home with us. When I got them unpacked and began the identification process, I found it interesting, but not surprising, that I gravitated primarily to Scheurich pieces. The four pieces I had already bought for my small collection were all Scheurich, not because I searched for them by name, but because the glaze colors and textures produced by that company are very often more subdued and pleasing to my eye than some of the more brightly colored and more heavily textured examples that came out of other West German ceramic companies.

Here are the small pieces that followed me back to my house. (I'm giving the height in inches, but if you're interested in the height in centimeters, it is given following the "-" or "/" in the form number of the piece.)

Scheurich 284-15
6" tall

Scheurich 268-15
6" tall

Scheurich 275-20
8" tall

Scheurich 400-22
8 .5" tall

Scheurich 261-18
7" tall

U Keramik 1436-14
5.5" tall

But then there were the two big brothers that had to come home with us too...the floor vases, in all their massive glory.

Carstens 7652-45
18" tall

I haven't been able to identify the brown and orange piece below. It is marked "3250/50 Made in W. Germany" and has what appears to be an S or a Z hand-incised in the center of the base. I'm sure many of you are far more knowledgeable than I am about West German pottery, and I would appreciate any information you have about this floor vase. Although the colors in this piece are stunning,  it is a little more ornate than anything else I have in my house, so I will probably sell it.

3250/50
19.5" tall

My daughter made the trip for two pieces but only brought home the one shown below, which may or may not have originally been designed as a Christmas tree stand. I can't find a maker on it either, but it is marked N058 60 20. I found the exact item on eBay for 55 Euros ($73). She paid $10.

Vase? Ceramic Christmas tree stand?

The only bad news of the day concerned the bright yellow vase with grayish-brown at the top. It had two large, very visible cracks on either side of the neck, from its lip to the area where the yellow started. My daughter decided not to get it, but now I wish she had. She wanted it for her own personal use, not for resale, so I could easily have repaired it, like I did the Raymor lighter of yore.

The yellow vase that probably wasn't a lost cause...(sigh)

As for those of you who loved the red pendant light, it was really gorgeous, but I had no place in my house for it. I thought my daughter might like to hang it in the alcove of the main house over her dining table, but for some reason, she didn't seem as carried away with that idea as I was, so it stayed behind.

When we got home, my SIL thought we should have bought more. I have a feeling we may be sending her more money by PayPal and asking her to stash some things in her attic until we head that direction again. With any luck, it won't be long, because her home is only 20 miles off the route we often take on buying trips.