Malibu Potteries Salesman Sample Book, ca. 1930
GUEST:
We recently moved to a house, and my mother brought a bunch of my grandmother's stuff and my grandfather's stuff. And in the box was this book. And I opened it up, and it really appealed to me. I really enjoyed looking at it. My grandmother was the one who owned this book, and she was an artist. She did a lot of painting and a lot of pottery throughout her life.
APPRAISER:
This is a net price list from the Malibu Potteries, which was a rather small outfit in California. And they opened in 1926 or so. And they were not in business for very long, maybe six years. And this would have been shown to prospective buyers-- what the tiles were and how much
they would cost at the time. The lady who started the company, her name was May Rindge. We do see this type of book, but usually in reproduction. But this is full of these beautiful color images of tiles. So it explains to you what their Moroccan tiles were, and then you have a lot of what...they're called Saracen tiles. These are all hand colored, so painstakingly done, absolutely fabulous. I want to show some of the very nicer ones. Look at this. This is like a Persian carpet, and it's all made out of tiles. And look at this one. This is my very favorite, iris wainscot. It's such a beautiful Arts and Crafts statement. And while so many of these other designs are Spanish revival, because that was what a lot of the houses in that area would have been in the 1920s in California, this is definitely much more Japanese. I don't think I've ever seen this in actual tiles. Some of the other ones you see from time to time, but they're all rare. There's not many Malibu tiles out there. While I don't think this is a unique book, I don't think many of these were made at all. The value of this is hard to pinpoint. I think at auction we would probably put this somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000.
GUEST:
Wow, that's great. Thank you.
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