Catalogs, wishes, and Christmas dishes

When I was a little girl, nothing beat the excitement of getting that Sears Christmas catalog in the mail. Today's children will never know the joy of having that big honkin' catalog arrive in the mailbox each fall. I would inhale the scent of the paper (I've always loved the smell of paper and ink) and pore over the pages, trying to make the difficult decision of precisely which dolls and toys I wanted to ask Santa to bring me. Many of those old catalogs are online now, and I recently came across the Montgomery Ward catalog from 1961, which features more grown-up toys, some of the Lefton Christmas dishes that are still around today.

I have seen enough of these pieces in stores to have observed that some seem more crudely made than others, and after comparing some of my own such dishes, I've decided that the real Lefton pieces must be the ones with that darker, almost blue-green hue. You can't quite tell from my photo, but the plate at far left is actually a short pedestal plate. When I photographed it with the others, it became apparent that the color isn't the same as the real Lefton pieces. (But hey, I gave, like, two dollars for it, and I'd do that again. Pedestals are great for varying the heights in a display.)

The color is right on these small mugs, perfect for teatime, but the glaze looks kind of foggy in the photos but is actually just a very glossy, pearlescent kind of glaze. I intend to ask a ceramicist friend about this!

On some of these mugs, the paint on the red berries is starting to flake off and isn't as bright as on this one. Considering how much I paid for them at the thrift store (twenty cents), I can't really complain, but I would like to bring these back to life if that's possible. It was fun to see some of these old pieces in a vintage catalog. If only we could go back in time and shop at those prices!