Carstens Tönnieshof began in 1900 but resumed post-war production sometime between 1945 and 1947. It was one of several pottery factories owned by the Carsten family, but it was the one that produced most of their art pottery. The company was very successful for many years, producing a wide range of shapes and glazes. The factory closed in 1984.
The primary designers were Trude Carstens, who was artistic director until her death in 1965, and Gerda Heuckenroth, Heinz Seiry and A. Seide. The company's products are generally of above-average quality. The
Luxus and
Atelier ranges were high-end Carstens products.
Atelier, which was desinged by Gerda Heuckenroth,
premiered in 1962, and
Luxus was launched in 1967.
Markings on Carstens pieces vary widely. When marked, they are generally embossed with a "twin house" mark, with the letter
T over the letter
C centered underneath. However, markings are sometimes incised. When spelling out
West Germany, they generally abbreviate
West simply as
W, sometimes with a period and sometimes with a period and a hyphen. Occasionally, the letter
Y in the word
Germany is lower case, as is the case with Bay products, but most often you can tell the difference, since Carstens usually used red clay, as opposed to Bay's white clay. (Carstens did have some products made in Austria and Australia, however, and they were white clay.)
Carstens generally used the typical West German double-number system, with the first number representing the style and the second number the height in centimeters, but some of their styles started with letters, normally an
E or an
M.
From ginforsodditiques and anseta.com
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| My Carstens floor vase |
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| retropottery.net |
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| 1stdibs.com |
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| ebay.com - septemberiris |
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| ebay.co.uk - fireandflamede |
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| etsy.com - RetroEurope |
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| wunderkammershop.de |
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| ebay.com - tradenexpo |
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| ebay.com - maiksylvia |
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| ebay.com - retro-beat1957 |
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| ebay.com - tradenexpo |
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| ebay.com - maiksylvia |
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| ebay.co.uk - fireandflamede |
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| huntforvintage.blogspot.com |
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| ebay.com - tradenexpo |
