I Bought It But What Is It? - Union Porcelain Works, dates to 1877

[KC]

Darn it.....I think there is a possibility it could be another item......

A darner!!!!!  My mom's was wooden and I have seen many wooden ones.....but there are porcelain and porcelain/wooden ones!!!!!!!

 

 


Cracked me up...this person has the same problem....
http://pages.tias.com/8824/PictPage/3923641225.html

Tales....does your handle screw off?  Is it hollow inside if it does?

[wendy177]

KC thought the same thing they also made glass blown darners. I have the same book as Cogar 300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles but mine is 2003  and on page 24 it shows a drawing of the beetle in porcelain and I agree I think that is what your piece is.Yes Tales it does look like yours.  potato mashers have been  found up to 24" long for use in restaurants & boarding houses.

[KC]

Darn it!

[talesofthesevenseas]

"Darn" good research there... LOL! 

If it looks like the one in the book I guess it's a potato beetle! Wendy or Cogar, could you photograph the picture in the book so that we can lay the question to rest when you have a chance? Thanks everyone, and please extend my thanks to "Mrs. Cogar" too!

I saw one of those wooden darners listed as an English potato masher. I can just imagine how our grandmothers up in heaven must be chuckling, as we darn our socks with the potato masher and mash the potatos with the sock darner!!

[waywardangler]

Multi-tasking tool...A Popeil Mash-O-Matic! Masher, darner, & pestle all in one!

[talesofthesevenseas]

I love it when we are ALL right!!

[cogar]

Here is the best I can do on short notice.

Sam

[cogar]

an enlarge & crop

[cogar]

There Tales, does that make you happy that you now have a potentially 150 year old kitchen collectible.

Now how much did you pay for it? 

That should deserve an honored spot on your Baker's Cabinet.

Great find. Those intuitions pay off sometimes, don't da.

[talesofthesevenseas]

I am happy! That's VERY cool!!

I paid $12 for it so I think I did OK since the book says $8 - $35. I guess we could add something for inflation, subtract something for the economic downturn. I have no idea if the UPW brand would up the value much since it is a kitchen gadget. I guess it would depend on how many of these are still in existance and if you could market it to UPW collectors. Although I guess its an oddity and fancy by kitchen utensil standards, it isn't ornate in the way that other UPW items are. I guess it would all boil down to rarity.

It does make me wonder who owned it originally. I suspect something like this may have been a wedding gift since most of these were wood and more utilitarian than this one. 

I have a nice little gathering of functional antique kitchen gadgets and they are in the dough bowl, which sits on the Hoosier and was going to put it in with them. It should be here in a few days and I'll let you guys know if there is any additional info when I get it in hand.

I think it's official...


 

[KC]

Interesting further information on UPW....they dealt with railroads!!!!!!

http://www.kovels.com/200901215985/Mystery-Marks/union-porcelain-works.html

[regularjoe2]

Vintage early 1900's German related-item image :

[talesofthesevenseas]

Well antiquers, the mystery of the UPW kitchen implement deepens. It arrived today and it is not a potato masher. All the potato mashers are showing a round bottom. This one is flat and even slightly concave, except for the center where there is a very slight point. This makes it sit almost flat and accounts for the wear and staining in a tiny spot in the center and along the edges, because it teeters a little on this point.

The handle is not glued in. It is loose and lifts up about 1/8" but does not actually come out of the porcelain base. (Not sure how that is accomplished) There is a lot of wear at the point where the handle contacts the porcelain. It looks like the handle has been rubbing against this surface for a VERY long time and it has more wear here than anyplace else. This makes me think the handle has either been designed to move a little, or it has been loose like this during many, many years of use.

The handle is hand carved, not turned on a lathe. It is quite irregular, although it looks like someone really tried hard to make it uniform (Very cool IMHO!!) It is sanded smooth, but looking at it with a little magnification, I can see some very faint tool marks in the form of tiny lines. They are all going the same direction on the biggest part of the handle, and they change direction where the handle starts tapering down to the neck. They go in the opposite diretion here, and it looks like the carver worked the wood from the opposite direction on this part. (I'm learning a lot from this little guy already!) I think this would be consistant with the days prior to the lathe being commonly used. (Post 1880).

The porcelain piece has a nice clear glaze on the white so that it is not porous, much like a bathroom sink would have. The U.P.W. logo is beneath the glaze and has been protected. It is dark green, consistant with the example on page 1 of this thread that dates it to about 1877. The porcelain part was definitely formed in a mold and is very uniform in shape, so I do think that these were mass-produced. Now if we could just find another one!

I'll do my best to get some photos of all of this. My camera is toast and I'm down to just cell phone photography, but I'll give it a shot.

...Guess I posted that "Case Solved" graphic a weeeeeee bit prematurely, eh?!!

[mariok54]

My gut feeling was something to do with dairy, part of a  butter press ??

[waywardangler]

Perchance it would be a knob reused as a plunger of sorts?  Any remnants of threading on the shaft going into the knob?  I think there are only a couple of ways for the shaft to be attached to the porcelain head...1) glued - not if it is loose and won't slip off 2) threaded - left or right hand.