Category: Favorite Things

I found these plates at a yard sale in Colorado.  Something about the pattern really appealed to me, so I picked them up to get a closer look.  I turned one of the plates over and saw this:


1945!  My heart started beating a little bit faster.   I should have known.  I seem to have an innate ability to pick out and love things dating to the 40’s.  The other plates read 1945, 1947, and this one had a different stamp on the back, dating to 1940.  Seventy years old.  So cool.


I approached the woman selling them and when she saw what I held she said, “Oh, I love those.”  I asked where she got them, and she said that her friend’s mother had given them to her.  I purchased four dinner plates and a butter pat dish from her for $3.00 and walked away giddy.


I’ve since done some research on this china.  It was restaurant china, and the Adam pattern was produced in green, blue and black.  Warwick China went out of business in 1951.


Typically I’m not drawn to dark greens, but I think these plates are fabulous.  I love the simple elegance of the pattern. I think they would be beautiful to use for Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas.   In my online research, I found only three pieces of this china for sale, and a plate is selling for around $10.   It appears that I just fell in love with dishes that are hard to find!


Can I ask a favor?  If you ever see some of these plates at thrift stores, yard sales, etc. will you snatch them up for me?  I’ll pay you for them.  I would love to collect enough of them to serve dinner on, which at my house means 10 plates.

Warwick China, Adam pattern.  My new favorite dishes.  Do you have a vintage china pattern that you love?

Hopeful Homemaker

One of my summer goals is to get rid of everything we don’t need, everything that doesn’t enhance our life as a family.  It’s a bit tricky to reconcile this with my love of thrifting and old things.  Mostly it means I’m staying away from my favorite places.

I did, however, stop at a yard sale with my daughter for about 3 minutes the other day, and these little beauties were too sweet to leave behind.


It’s a set of four little bread plates, 6 inches in diameter, and I scored them for 25 cents each.


They all have the same markings on the bottom, but I like the variation in the patterns from plate to plate, like the different widths of the brown stripe around the edges (seen above).  Two of them have strawberries and leaves that are deeper in color, and two are lighter in hue, as if they’ve faded with time.  I like them both.




The marking on the bottom indicates they were made in Japan but there is no manufacturer listed.  Research shows an almost identical looking pattern made by Sheffied, also in Japan, but the marking on them is printed inside a strawberry shape.  It appears that they’re probably from the 80’s.


This is the kind of thrifting I can still feel good about.  I spent only $1.00 and with so many young children in our home, small plates are constantly in use.  I like having mis-matched salad and bread plates to use with my all-white dinner plates.  It’s a pretty way to mix things up.


Now all we need is strawberries and cream!

Hopeful Homemaker