Mayer China Company was founded in 1881 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, by Joseph and Ernst Mayer, two brothers whose father had been a potter in England. Information about the company is sketchy, but from what I’ve been able to gather, in its heyday Mayer China was one of the major producers of restaurant ware.
Their china could be found gracing the table of diners, railroad dining cars, country clubs and some of the finest restaurants and hotels in the United States. Some of their clients included the La Fonda Del Sol, a Manhattan restaurant designed by Alexander Girard, California's popular Honker restaurant, Miami's Pig and Sax spare rib restaurant, Dayton, Ohio's Wympee's hamburger restaurant, New York's Vanderbilt Hotel, the White Castle hamburger chain, the Clover Club in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Marando's in Milan, Illinois, US Steel and the NS Savannah, the first nuclear powered cargo-passenger ship. In addition to their restaurant ware, it appears that they also produced a retail line.
The factory was purchased by Shenango in 1964. It was then taken over by Walker in 1980 and bought by Syracuse in 1984, where china continued to be manufactured until the company moved their production out of the United States in 2009.
If you have any Mayer china, you can easily date it by looking at the last two numbers on the back. For example, if the number is 451, it is a 1951 design. (Update 10/3/2012: Several people have reported having pieces with no numbers. Apparently the souces I used for this post were incorrect about how easy it is to date your Mayer china!) Two very helpful sites for identifying this china is the
Restaurant Ware Collectors Network and
Little Spoon's Virtual Museum of Restaurant Ware and Restaurant China.
From restaurant-ware.com and restaurantwarecollectors.com
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La Fonda Del Sol, 1960
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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Pig and Sax, 1957
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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Wympee's, 1954
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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Vanderbilt Hotel, 1940s-1960s
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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White Castle, 1951
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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US Steel, 1951
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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N. S. Savannah, 1962
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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The Honker, 1959
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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Clover Club, 1962
restaurantwarecollectors.com |
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Marando's, c. 1950
marandosrestaurant.com |
If only the restaurant here has such fun china still - i love the clover one :o) Scarlett x
ReplyDeleteI think the clover one is my favorite too! It looks so typically mid-century.
DeleteOh how cool! Thanks for sharing the restaurant ware. While traveling through NC we stopped at Replacements, Ltd. They have a fab china museum and had a large display of restuarant ware. Oh, the western theme Shenango!
ReplyDeleteI have a set of Paul McCobb restaurantware that I love! I'm going to Replacements, Ltd. one of these days, just to say I've seen the place I've ordered so much from!!!
DeleteGreat background information. I found some amazing atomic style Mayer China a while back and it sold quickly, I'm kind of sad I let it go. Love the La Fonda del Sol stuf!
ReplyDeleteIt's really hard to let some things go, isn't it? There are several pieces we've sold that I'm still sad about.
DeleteWimpy & N.S. Savannah, I see you!
ReplyDeleteFun stuff, huh? :)
DeleteMayer China is quite great!
ReplyDeleteWhen I come across old resteraunt ware in thrifts (Which is not often unfortunatly. I am always drawn to it and want to buy it up. *lol*
The clover club sounds like a lovely place!
I adore the fat boy & pig and sax mugs.
I can just picture the diners and restaurants by looking at their china. I bet those were some fun places!
DeleteI have a very small collection of very small restaurantware because I just know people got them because somebody SWIPED them. It just makes me giggle to think of grandma slipping a tiny creamer or sugar bowl into her purse. LOVE these.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought about granny filching the china. That makes me love this stuff all the more.
DeleteYou may be too young to remember these...but I always loved those tiny clear glass individual creamers that were about 2" tall and 1" in diameter. I wish I had one of those.
I have one piece of Mayer - an awesome platter with one of my favorite atomic designs that I have come across yet. Best part - the lady selling it wanted 75 cents for it!
ReplyDeleteI just went back and looked at the picture of your beautiful platter with the fantastic atomic design. It's the piece that inspired me to research Mayer.
DeleteI was given a Mayer China pitcher. It is plain white and marking on bottom is "Mayer China. EST. 1881" so what would the date be for it being made??
ReplyDeleteThat was the year the company was established. Your piece could have been made up through 1964, when Mayer China was purchased by Shenango.
DeleteIs there any way to find out an exact year for it? There is no there words on it other than that? I have a pic of it if that would help.. Thanks Robin
DeleteThe sentence up top says "If you have any Mayer china, you can easily date it by looking at the last two numbers on the back." There are no numbers on it so how do I date it?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why a company that normally marked its pieces would put out unmarked pieces, but I guess that's what makes identifying mid-century design so much like solving a mystery. I'm a Russel Wright collector and don't own any Mayer, so there are lots of people who know waaaaay more about it than I do.
DeleteMy suggestion is to go to the two links I provided in the same paragraph and see if you find pictures of your pitcher. Maybe you can find a date that way. If that fails, I'd suggest going to modish.net and joining. It's free, and there's bound to be someone on that site who can tell you what you want to know. Michael Pratt at that site is a real expert on the subject of china and pottery. You can probably share a photo on any of those three sites, and someone can help you.
Good luck identifying it!
Okay thanks will give it a shot and see if I can find out.
DeleteI have what I think is a covered sugar bowl and the bottom of it says "Clover Pattern Under Glaze Warranted J & E Mayer" - no numbers
DeleteMichele
Does it just have a clover pattern, or is it like the Clover Club design shown above?
DeleteWell went to modish.net and joined and asked this Michael Pratt about my pitcher his response was "Our community is all about modern design".. So I unsubscribed and am still searching..
ReplyDeleteApparently your piece is from the early years of the company and a site that deals with antiques might be more helpful.
DeleteI have several cream colored cups with a blue and gold band around the top and what looks like a University style logo with the letters U and C inter locking. Can anyone tell me what U C represents. It says on the bottom Beaver Falls China. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI'd start by making a list of all the universities that start with C and then Google them till I find the logo.
DeleteMy Mom used to work here in the 70's . She still has some of the coffee mugs :)
ReplyDeleteMy Father was thier Director of Design from '64 until moving to New Castle in late 80's I still use his most comercial popular "Sculptura" design from 78' Others have been copying that basic form still see it in mag photos today. He was the best, you can add Disney, Hilton, Greenbreir,Flamingo, goes on and on all over the country...
ReplyDeleteThen your father was Scotty Pierce.
DeleteMy company was Minners Designs of NYC who did a great deal of business with Mayer.
I spent many hours with Scotty & have fond memories of him.
We did many projects with Mayer, such as the N.S Savannah, West Point, N.Y Hospital, The Wall Street Club &
many, many more. I sold the opening order of Sculptura to the Tropicana in Atlantic City, As well as Mayer to Resorts International & The Golden Nugget Casino in A/C.
Those were the years,
Don Gibbons
Bob Minners & I were very involved.
I just stumbled on this website.
Those were the years,
Don Gibbons
Great hearing from family members of former Mayer employees! I wish they hadn't been signed on as Unknown and Anonymous and had allowed us to contact them so we could ask more questions.
ReplyDeleteI have a Mayer plate #261 from the Franciscan Restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I guess I can presume it is older than 1964 when the company was sold. There is a dessert plate currently on E-bay that has a Syracuse trademark. So can I also presume that the pattern was in manufacture for a while after the buyout.
ReplyDeleteI know very little about Mayer, except for the research I did for this post. I would suggest going to the two sites that I used when as source material for the post and seeing if you can contact a collector.
DeleteOne post is restricted to members and the other site is how I found you. I have connected with the second via email. http://www.restaurant-ware.com/mayer/mayer004.jpg Here is a picture from her site.showing the design..
DeleteHi: I have a Mayer dinner plate and wonder if anyone knows what the PBH emblem on the plate stands for?
ReplyDeleteMany thanks....
I worked there one summer where I collected a couple of seconds from the line that they made for Disney World and Disneyland restaurants with the Disney logos on them.
ReplyDeleteI bought Mayer China dessert plates "hand painted especially for the Manger Hotels". they have what appears to be an English Rider on horseback, jumping a fence. Gave them to my niece and would love to have more but can't find anything about them.
ReplyDeleteThey manufactured china for countless businesses. I doubt that anyone has a complete list or knows about all of them. I haven't seen any like the ones you gave to your niece. I'd be interested in finding out more about them too. Maybe a reader can help.
DeleteI find shards of Mayer pottery here in a corn field Tewksbury, MA where the Tewksbury State Hospital (home when it was a state almshouse to Anne Sullivan, later Helen Keller's teacher, for 4 years beginning in 1876 when she was a child) has extensive acreage and the corn field area was where they dumped stuff. So apparently the State Hospital served meals on Mayer pottery.
ReplyDeleteI have a 1 Mayer china 1881 but not sure what it is it look like something they use to put shaving cream in with blue around it???
ReplyDeleteI have a creamer designed especially for Royal Hotel in New Orleans with fleur de lis on sides.
ReplyDeleteI have a pitcher about 5 1/4 inches tall with a burgundy line around the top and the initials AV on the body of the pitcher written in fancy script. It says Mayer China co. on the bottom and Beaver Falls, Pa and a number that appears to be 184. I also have a demitasse cup that also has a burgundy line around the top with five clusters of burgundy dots around the top. Just wondering if anyone knows anything about these pieces. I pretty sure they came from my mother-in-law who worked at a couple of restaurants in Orlando, Florida near Disney World in the 70's. Maybe the picture was for extra coffee, but it's not a tea pot and the lid is missing. She's one of the little old ladies who probably brought it home in her purse.
ReplyDeleteI have a salad plate. It has 20 different design emblems with Numbers to identify each design. Them emblems are all around the edges and #'s are underneath each emblem On the back, it is stamped with Mayer China EST. 1881. Could anyone let me know exactly what I have? Thank you in Advance.
ReplyDeleteI have been trying to locate this plate pattern. its from disneyland blue bayou from the 1990's. I cant find it anywhere! Need help I have 6 cases of these. the only identifying marks are Mayer china co. Beaver falls, Pa. #187
ReplyDeleteI found two nearly identical 9 1/4" x 11 1/2" brown-ringed oval platters, both made by MAYER China. One is marked MAYER, Beaver Falls with number 479. The other is also marked MAYER with number 380. The latter one with the 380 number has "OUR AROC TM" in black letters on top of the Mayer logo. I gather these platters were made in 1979 and 1980, but what is the AROC? It could be the Alpha Romeo Owners Club, but that seems a bit of a stretch because there is nothing else to the logo. Any ideas?
ReplyDelete