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Mountain Hopping 2016:
Mayer

Mayer China
Mayer China
Mayer China
Mayer China

Below, we were able to identify these two patterned shards. The one on the left is a fragment of a cup handle, the same motif used on both the Nassau and Marion patterns used by Horn & Hardart. (See the photo of the Marion cup following the shards image.) That said, it is certainly possibly that this was used on other handles with non-H&H patterns, but it was immediately recognizable because of our interest in automat china.

The pattern on the shard at right is called Monroe and is found in the No. 10 Book of Decorations, a Mayer catalog of underglaze printed patterns.

While looking for these patterns, we also found Mayer's motto: "The Ware with the Wear Resisting Glaze."

Mayer China
Marion pattern
Mayer China
Click here for Google's Street View; you will be looking directly at the plant. Latitude, longitude: 40.7469408, -80.3173056.
Mayer China
Mayer China
Above, an advertising tray in our collection for Mayer's True Ivory off-white clay body line.

Mayer is where we went wrong – 10 miles wrong.

We were following this Beaver County Times story from 2007 that reported James Paff was moving his Paff Custom Welding shop to the Mayer site in Beaver Falls. And as you will read, it described the thousands of pieces of china – both broken and intact – that he would have to deal with during renovations.

In anticipation of our trip, we had Googled Paff Custom Welding and found it in Ellwood City– 10 miles from Beaver Falls, where Mayer was supposed to be located. But because a lot of these companies used post office boxes as their addresses, we rationalized that it was the same with Mayer and that the plant had actually been located out of town.

When we found the building housing the welding shop, we didn't want to disturb them, and it was an old brick building. So we started to take photos.

Luckily that's when Paff's son Bryan came out and asked if he could help us, and introduced us to his dad.

The Mayer plant had been burdened with liens and other financial entanglements, Paff said, so he backed out and found the Ellwood City location. He had forgotten Mayer's street address but was able to give us directions to the general area, dependent upon us being able to find a certain fruit stand in Beaver Falls.

We turned around and drove back to Beaver Falls. And there it was, at Sixth Street and Second Avenue, and with the name still over the door.

The most interesting thing about Beaver Falls, and the Mayer building, was the predominance of a lot of yellow in the clay body of the building bricks.


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Digging in West Virginia, Pennsylvania & Ohio

The Carr China site
Page 1: The grounds
Page 2: The shards
Page 3: After the first cleanup in 2009
Page 4: The final cleanup

 

Page 5: Mountain Hopping 2016
             Trenle-Blake
             McNicol
             Carr (again)          
             Mayer
             Shenango
             Jackson
Page 6: River Hopping 2017
             McNicol (again)
             Warwick
             Sterling
             Hall/Homer Laughlin
             Bedford China/                   
             Bailey-Walker/Walker

             Fraunfelter

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