ALL BUTTERED UP FOR COLLECTING

Victorian butter pats, whether miniature replicas of the china they
accompanied or a whimsical design all their own, are infinitely collectible.
 

Johnson Brothers, now part of the expansive Wedgwood Group, continues to produce butter pats for retail/domestic sale. Royal Doulton Hotel and Airline section supplies hotels, restaurants, airlines and commercial catering industries, providing a customized design service for butter pats when required. By offering porcelain as well as bone china, Royal Doulton is able to meet the requirements of a wide range of establishments, from banqueting specialists to some of the most prestigious hotels in the world including The Ritz and the Four Seasons chain. Royal Doulton has established itself as a major supplier of china, including butter pats, to international airlines such as British Airways, Air Canada, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, South African Airways and Air New Zealand. Royal Doulton no longer manufactures individual butter plates for home use. The following earthenware patterns continue to be produced by Spode, and supply is by demand: Blue and Pink Tower, Chinese Rose and Chelsea Wicker. But none sell nearly as well as in past times. The long-gone kilns of Trenton and Newark, New Jersey produced butter pats in great quantities along with those that were manufactured in the potteries in and around East Liverpool, Ohio.

Interestingly, rare vestiges of Victorian tableware may be found today when traveling in first or business classes on the international airlines or when dining in European or Asian restaurants or hotels. One might see as part of the meal presentation individual salt and pepper sets, linens held in place with porcelain or silver serviette holders and butter pats. Since many of the international airlines have discontinued the use of labor-intensive individual butter containers, these pieces are now being sought by collectors and are soaring in price.

Butter pats have gained the attention of contemporary collectors. Because of their tiny dimensions, a large collection takes up minimal space. Some collectors focus on individual butter plates from matched china patterns, such as Haviland. It has been determined that Haviland companies alone designed as many as 60,000 dinnerware patterns–most with matching butter pats. The Haviland factories in Limoges, France, manufactured china that was decorated in the French style of pastel floral motifs for the American market. Hand-painting, however, is the whole concept of Limoges china. When you look at an entire table set with Limoges china, you know that every flower and leaf on every single piece was painstakingly painted by an artist’s hand. The distinctive flowers on early Haviland butter pats are tiny and the colors are pale. As diminutive as they are, however, Haviland flowers are remarkable in their hand-painted detail. The 1908 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog advertised a 100-piece Theodore Haviland dinner set, including 12 individual butter dishes, for $23.50! The mail order company offered sample butter pats, postpaid, upon receipt of ten cents to allow the customer to see "the beauty of the ware and the delicacy of the decoration." Today the same tiny piece would sell for approximately $20.

In England during the 1800's, butter pats were included with dinnerware services for twelve. The variety of wares and designs that were produced, mainly by the Staffordshire potteries, make English butter pats second only to Haviland pats in availability. Many English pats were marked with the maker’s name or trademark. However, due to the diminutive size of the pieces, many were left unmarked. It is often possible to determine the maker by comparison with large pieces of china in the same pattern. Since so many pats are unmarked, do not expect to be able to trace the provenance of all of the pieces in a collection.

One popular pattern that made its way from England to the United States in great quantities was the Tea Leaf Ironstone pattern. In her book Grandma’s Tea Leaf Ironstone (publishers Wallace Homestead, 1981), Annise Doring Heaivilin wrote, "Butter chips (or butter pats) are some of the best-loved replicas of Victorian china, but there seem to still be a great many in circulation yet. They were concurrent with the popularity of our Tea Leaf pattern; consequently, every barrel of dishes shipped from England which contained a service for twelve, held a dozen little butter pats as part of the set. They were probably used on special occasions. Thus, they were not subjected to breakage as were pitchers or plates. More than twenty years ago, someone reported there were over 65,000 butter chip collectors, and most of the interest stemmed from childhood memories."

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