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Given Away Toy Samples of Swasey Stoneware[.] Finest Stoneware in the World

Portland, Maine: Swasey Stoneware, [ca. 1900]. Illustrated broadside on cardstock, 12.25” x 9.5” plus margins, text and mounted silver bromide print within ornamental border, photo size 5.5” x 3.875”. CONDITION: Very good.

An apparently unrecorded broadside advertising “toy samples” by a prolific Maine stoneware manufactory, illustrated with an original photograph of a little girl posing with a miniature teapot with Swasey Stioneware’s characteristic brown-glazed top and cream-colored bottom.

Text on either side of the photograph announces Swasey wares to be “tough as iron,” “half light and dark,” “fire proof,” capable of lasting “a lifetime,” and so on. The girl herself, in black stockings and a white dress, stands with curls pulled back before an ornate white side table, her right hand resting on the handle of a miniature teapot next to an equally petite bean pot, both stamped “E. Swasey & Co. Portland, ME.” Instructions at the foot of the broadside direct readers to “Send 6 Cents in Stamps to E. Swasey & Co., Portland, Maine, and receive a Coupon entitling you to one of these Samples FREE. Bring your Coupons to us and get Samples here.”

Pottery and glassware firm E. Swasey & Company was owned by Eben and Fred Swasey and George Young, and operated at 273 Commercial Street in Portland, Maine from 1890 to about 1930 as a producer of beanpots, crocks, jugs, jars, and more. Eben Swasey, a potter, had apprenticed in Exeter, New Hampshire and spent his early years in business with Rufus Lamson, with whom he moved to Maine in 1875. Eben Swasey’s son Perley joined the business in the late 1890s, carrying it on beyond his father’s death in 1906 until the company fell victim to the Great Depression.

Item #10172

Price: $950.00

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