Recognise this? #2

Autumn Splendour...

Green Bamboo...

Fashion Rose...

Golden Fall...

Aaaannnddd Shasta Daisy!

If you're aged anywhere between 50 and 100 you will remember these patterns only too well. They first hit our shops in 1959 and Autumn Splendour was Crown Lynn's best selling pattern for most of the next 10 years. Green Bamboo wasn't far behind.

They are mass produced lithographs from a New York supplier, chosen because they were attractive and middle-of-the-road. Crown Lynn used them to launch its 'replacement series' - when you broke a plate you could buy a single replacement rather than an entire new dinner set. This scheme proved immensely popular and was extended into many other patterns over the next few years.

This is what the mark on the base looks like. Classic Crown Lynn.



Autumn Splendour and Green Bamboo are far and away the most common of this series, though they are often damaged as the decoration is easily scratched. Today Fashion Rose has quite a following, as does Shasta Daisy.  And as for Golden Fall... well it was reasonably popular at the time but doesn't ignite much passion today!  My photo above shows a later variation of the pattern - the initial plates did not have the yellow band.

In its later desperate years in the late 1970s-1980s Crown Lynn had a lot of surplus stock which was decorated with whatever was available then sold through the 20-odd seconds shops. That's why you get oddities like this:

A plain 'Apollo' plate has been dotted with small Autumn Splendour lithographs to make it look a bit different. Like much of the ware sold in the seconds shops in the latter years this plate carries no mark on its base at all. However its shape, weight and decoration clearly identifies it as Crown Lynn.

More next weekend
Take care till then
ValM