House and Garden 
MODKRN BLUE PLATE WITH PORTRAIT OP WASHINGTON; 
THE importer’s NAME REMOVED AND 
BACK WORN BY TREATMENT 
it at her own risk, etc., and flatly declined to do so. 
Another fortnight went by. Once more the woman 
faced the dealer, but this time she was smiling. 
“Well,” said she, “you thought you were smart 
sticking me with that Syntax plate; but I’m as smart 
as you are, for I sold it to Mrs. B-yesterday for 
$2y, and now— have you got any more 
Anybody who has seen an original Syntax plate 
would not be likely to be taken in by these imita¬ 
tions; but then, how many have seen them .? The 
picture of the plate is an exact photographic repro¬ 
duction of the original, but the blue, though dark, 
is not the rich deep color of the old Staffordshire 
plates made in 1820 for the American market; more¬ 
over, there is a smoothness, a newness and a white¬ 
ness to the backs quite unlike the creamy tint of 
the originals, and they are heavier and don’t ring 
with the dried out sound that comes when you tap 
the original with your finger. 
Imitations of Syntax plates are among the latest 
and cleverest of ceramic cheats, hut there are 
plenty of others. There are very good imitations of 
Staffordshire ware but not of any particular value 
even when genuine; then there are historical blue 
plates such as the Philadelphia Water Works, the 
New York Citv Hall and the landing of Lafayette 
which originally had the importer’s 
name under the glaze, but are now 
often without, as the result of “treat¬ 
ment. ” 
When I bought those shown in the 
illustrations I suggested that nobody was 
likely to be deceived by them, they 
looked too new. “Lor’bless you,’’said 
the woman, “ I can fix that for you in a 
minute, just put them on the top of 
the stove with a little grease in them. ” 
You see it’s diamond cut diamond 
right along. 
Up to three and a half years ago 
there was one thing that seemed to defy 
imitation and that was silver lustre. 
Just at that time, however, a Western 
firm discovered a way of making a 
very tolerable imitation. They wrote to 
one dealer in each large city offering 
to copy any silver lustre pieces that 
they might send them and to give 
them their exclusive business in that 
district. The result was that scores 
and scores of spurious tea-sets, pitchers 
and lustre decorated vases were soon 
launched upon the market. A quantity 
of this stuff has been sold through the 
auction rooms but most dealers are 
on to it now and the business is not so 
brisk. This modern silver lustre is 
easily told by its extremely sbiny, glassy look; its 
surface is more like that of a cheap mirror than a 
piece of silver. 
In copper lustre there are hundreds of imitation 
old pitchers and tea sets, but they may be told partly 
by the roughness of the surface and partly by the 
comparative dullness of the lustre. Genuine old 
copper lustre polishes up like a bright copper kettle, 
and is as smooth to the touch as a flat-iron. 
Some of the reproductions of the cheaper grades 
of pottery now on the market are made from the 
original moulds; notably the small brown Toby 
jugs and cow cream pitchers, originally made by 
the Jersey Porcelain and Earthenware Co., (in¬ 
corporated in 1825) and the American Pottery Manu¬ 
facturing Co., (organized 1835). The cow pitcher 
shown in the illustration can be bought at retail for 
45 cents and the Toby jug for 15 cents and yet plenty 
of them are sold to the unwary at ten times that 
price. The reproductions of the mugs can be told 
from the blurred outlines (due to badly worn moulds), 
the coarse glaze and the inferior quality of the clay, 
which is usually very dark or a quite light yellowish 
brown. The older mugs were more of a tortoise¬ 
shell mottled brown with a fine glaze, and the fea¬ 
tures were sharply outlined. The cows are harder 
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