This is a tale of a plate, a very fishy plate.

Virtually everyone who’s interested in retro, vintage, mid century modern, 60s, 70s, etc. etc. will recognise the following plates:

I’ve got a set, you’ve got a set; everyone has got a set. Usually bought from some old dear at a car boot sale who didn’t know what they were. “Cost you a fortune on the internet, they will!” Will they? I would never have known… As usual, I digress.

Not last weekend but the one before, (twenty four robbers came knocking at my door). No, no… Aidan bought a great big stash of retro booty, which I subsequently blogged about in ‘Aidan’s Big Booty’. (As another aside, remind me that I’ve got a funny story about this later). Amongst the vintage paraphenalia, was this:

Now this plate is not made by Washington Pottery, the company which makes the Beefeater plates. It has a stamp on the back for a W.H. Grindley & Co of Staffordshire, England. Except, I can’t find this particular stamp anywhere. Nor can I find any other examples of this print on a W.H. Grindley plate.  However, what I can find are examples of Washinton Pottery plates with this fish print on. There’s even one for sale on Ebay right now.

Puzzling? Yes. Interesting? To me, yes.

I just can’t work it out. Did the designers of the print sell the transfer to both of the companies? Are Washington Pottery and W.H. Grindley related in someway? I’ve had a look, but I can’t seem to find any links between them other than they’re both based in Stoke-on-Trent. That in itself doesn’t mean much as many pottery companies are located there.

If anybody can shed any more light onto this for me, I’d be very grateful. As it is, I’ll just enjoy looking at more pictures of the Washington Pottery versions of the range:

Very fishy, indeed…