posted 01-25-2015 11:52 AM            

I am not an expert on Porter Blanchard and so I would like to ask if any of you might be able to answer a couple of questions that I have not been able find answers to yet.

The first is the marking on the bottom. All of the Porter Blanchard pieces I have seen so far have a marking of either Sterling or Pewter. This one has neither - there is no indication as to what kind of metal this is. To my eye it looks like silver, and in the few areas where there is some wear such as on the base the underlying metal seems to be silver as well. In the bottom of the interior there are a couple of tiny nicks into the metal and the underlying metal there also looks like silver. Did Porter Blanchard ever work in silver plate? It does not make much sense to me that he would put all of this work into creating a bowl of this quality of workmanship but then use silver plate when he was so famous for his working in sterling. I am open to any thoughts on why this is not marked as to its metal content - including not even having a silver plate marking of some kind.

My second question is whether there is any chance of coming up with a range of dates or era as to when this would have been made. Do the markings on the bottom indicate this? When did he use the pictograph of a smith hammering an object - throughout his entire career or just at a certain time? The number 009 seems to be applied one digit at a time since the alignment of the digits is not perfect. Is this a pattern number or something else, and can it be used for coming up with an approximate date? I would assume if it is a pattern number this would be an early pattern, being number 009. However, would he have gone on to make this pattern for the rest of his entire career? Would this be something he made in the first part of his career or something later or is there no way to tell?

[This message has been edited by Kimo (edited 01-25-2015).]

[This message has been edited by Kimo (edited 01-25-2015).]

posted 01-28-2015 04:13 PM            

Thanks for the reminder about Randy Stromsoe having been Porter's last apprentice. There is an email address for Randy on Randy's website that I will use to email my question to him. Hopefully he will know and I will share whatever he may tell me with everyone here.

posted 02-02-2015 07:28 PM            

I remember these bowls well. Porter designed them and began making them some time in the 30's. They are called THE TUMBLE HOME BOWL. He lived near a ship yard and later became a wooden boat builder himself. If you look up "Tumble Home" in ship and boat design, it was used so if another ship/boat rammed you, the widest point would be just about in the middle and the top of the side are really curved in therefore not allowing easy access over the railing, and more stability etc. Porter really liked this look.

This is polished pewter.

I somehow feel that Lewis made this as a gift for someone. Lewis didn't have a pewter stamp. He was a sterling flatware man and didn't work in pewter or have pewter up at his studio in Calabasas. If our hollowware shop had made it would have been stamped pewter. Also later on after Porter died and the whole company was moved up to the shop in Calabasas it became a privately owned company Porter Blanchard Inc. They used straight number stamps. The one on your bowl as you pointed was hand stamped individually 009. Each bowl is a bit different depending on the craftsman who made it as we spun them on air and didn't use a form. It was a beautiful little bowl. Porter was making them in the shop when I was working with him - he also would have stamped it pewter. Also, those are not Porter's hammer marks and they are not my hammer marks. It's funny I can usually tell by the hammer marks even before looking at the stamp as to which craftsman made a piece, how many worked on it and about the time it was made.

I caught wind in the late 90's that the new company owners were bringing an air hammer in to save time. That's just about when I gave noticed and moved to the central coast of California. All of those great silversmiths of yesteryear would have had a fit. I know I did. Fortunately I ended up with most all of Porter's and Lewis' tools and templates, notes, drawings and many of George Porter Blanchard's things ... including the B09 stamp.

So - to recap, I think this was made by Lewis Wise sometime between 1950 and 1970.