March, 19 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



101 



luster. They vary in height 

 from twelve to eighteen 

 inches. 



Among the Tobies which 

 have been made with noted 

 likenesses are those of 

 George II and George IV, 

 the former being very un- 

 popular with the tavern folk. 

 He was endowed with a 

 greedy-eyed, heavy-j owled 

 countenance, yet showing a 

 caricature of the original 

 which makes the likeness un- 

 mistakable. The Stafford- Sunderland frog mugs 

 shire modeler who designed George IV did it with little 

 appreciation of his subject, however. 



There is a quaintness and fascination about these little 

 mugs or pitcher men, that a collector cannot resist. It 

 requires great patience and no small amount of money to 

 acquire a collection of any size. Like other "old-timey" 

 things, when Tobies had outlived their days of usefulness, 

 no further thought was given to them, and they were un- 

 heeded and lost track of. Not a few of them were con- 

 sidered of so little consequence that they were relegated 

 to the dump heap, so that when the fad for collecting them 

 received an impetus, the collector encountered no little diffi- 

 culty in securing them, for while there seemed to be an 

 abundance of the queer-fashioned mugs on the market, it 

 was not hard to determine that the greater part of the 

 specimens exhibited were modern reproductions rather than 

 the genuine old-time Tobies. 



The identification of an original naturally requires both 

 time and skill, but that is a part of the collector's education, 

 and he soon learns the real points, buying with judgment 

 and often selling for far more than the specimen costs. 

 To the novice let it be said that the modern affairs are so 

 realistic of newness that they 

 are easily detected, for while 

 they imitate as far as possi- 

 ble the new ideas, yet they 

 come under a far different 

 category. They have not the 

 same soft colors of the orig- 

 inals, and as they are 

 handled, the old jug is found 

 to be much lighter than the 

 new. Then,, too, more espe- 

 cially in the Ralph Wood fig- 

 ures, part of the glaze ap- 

 pears to be missing. By 

 passing a lead pencil over 

 the surface a place will be 

 found where the pencil 

 grates and leaves a mark, 

 and this should be observed 

 by every collector. 



English Tobies are some- 

 times classified as Young 

 and Old Tobies, and the 

 terms are expressive, for the 

 Young Toby is a figure 

 standing as if full of life 

 and vigor, with a jovial, 

 happy-go-lucky expression. 

 The Old Toby is repre- 

 sented as seated, with a 

 worldly wise face which 

 conveys an impression of 

 having experienced life to "The Little Corporal, 



the fullest. Both types al- 

 ways carry the mug in one 

 hand or in both hands, and 

 from it a foaming liquid 

 seems about to issue. The 

 coloring of the OK Tobies is 

 principally yellow, while that 

 of the Young ones, is a com- 

 bination of brown and yel- 

 low. Of course both these 

 colorings are varied with 

 others. 



In 1716 a son was born 



to a Staffordshire miller, 



e Page collection who was name( i Ralph 



Wood . He became a potter, and he in turn had a son 

 named Ralph, who followed the same occupation. This 

 man had a son who was the third to be called Ralph Wood, 

 and this last named Wood went into the same business 

 with his father's cousin, Enoch Wood, who was dubbed, 

 "The Father of Pottery," and the whole family help us 

 much in the study of Staffordshire figures. The two char- 

 acteristics of the Woods' figures were that the coloring is 

 extremely delicate and that the flesh tints were of a pale, 

 fawnish gray color, rarely if ever of the usual flesh-tints. 

 They were the first, probably, to make Toby Philpotts, as 

 they were called. Other potters took up the same craft 

 and led to a flood of these little jugs. Even the great 

 Wedgewood himself is known to have made some. 



These figures lasted for a century and a half and were 

 very fashionable during that period. One of the earliest 

 ever made in Staffordshire has a daub of dark brown 

 magnus on the eyes, and the whole contour of the figure 

 suggests that it was one of the earliest made. 



Toby jugs and many figures are still made in Stafford- 

 shire, notably at Longton. They sell for a shilling or so, 

 but do not have the soft colors of the old work. 



It is not difficult now to 

 buy these old Staffordshire 

 figures, but the prices are 

 much more than they are 

 worth, and are liable to go 

 still higher as the demand 

 for these quaint ornaments 

 increases. The day has 

 passed when these were 

 neglected by the children 

 who were tired of them and 

 desired something new and 

 who had no regrets regard- 

 ing their sale until they 

 realized that they could have 

 obtained pounds where they 

 formerly received shillings. 



This is due to the small 

 army of collectors who had 

 the craze and were strong on 

 the trail of antiques. While 

 not belonging to the Staf- 

 fordshire period, yet there 

 was a kind of ware that was 

 known as the Sunderland 

 ware, which was rose pink. 



Some of this was made 

 into jugs depicting the Rol- 

 licking Sailor, Masonic em- 

 blems, and wedding symbols, 

 the last sometimes bearing 

 the name of both bride and 

 ' a Napoleon Toby groom. These ranged in 



