Nope. You aren’t rich–at least not from finding a piece of DescoWare. What you do have is an amazing high quality piece of cookware.
Some pieces do auction for a few hundred dollars. The highest result that I ever saw was about $250. As with any collectible, there are rules for higher values.
There are actually lots of pieces that are Descoware that don’t have the stamp on the bottom. Check out the page for Japanese Era for an example. Here are some pieces where you just can’t quite tell…
This is the color that most people know as Descoware. In the gallery is a typical GREAT garage sale find. A couple in this set show the overused bottom. I’m looking into some enamelware repair process- if you have some knowledge in this area…
This is the stuff that originally hooked me. I inherited an oval roaster from my great-grandmother. In our family it was known as the magic yellow pot. We swore that she could cook bricks of salt in that pot and it would make a lovely dinner. My aunts were very distressed when she picked this item to go to me since Gram was skipping a generation, but… I was born on her birthday. All the Aunties know that this has been very loved in my home– and daughter Katie will also cherish this item long after I’m gone. What great stuff… 5 generations of service to our family.
I’m not clear about when the blue came into being… how about leave a comment if you know! Still looking for the Descoware bean pot in blue….
Some of the designs and colors from the period when DescoWare was made in Japan. When the Desco guys in Los Angeles were facing increased competition, they briefly manufactured in Japan instead of Belgium. The Japanese colors were a little different. The yellows were less pale…more of an autumn. The Flame turned into Just Plain Orange. The designs from Japan got wild and there were a lot of accessories… the fondue set, the chafing dish–I have a set of canisters in orange and some plates in the autumn yellow color.
The pieces are much harder to identify because the Descoware Marking on the bottom was left out. Instead, they used paper labels only so unless the piece has been found with the paper label still attached, it’s largely impossible to identify.
They were also made from a much lighter gauge metal compared to the Belgian manufacture. The series included pots with little knobby handles on the lids. Anyone know what those knobs were made with?
These are beautiful pieces. They have a much older look I think than many of the other designs and the physical shapes are different– there is a banding around most of the edges for instance. Very elegant.
I believe this was named for the designer, but I can’t locate any information about this “Markley” person. Any Ideas or resources about Markley the designer? Add a comment!
This was also a later color and since these pieces have a waffled bottom, there is no Descoware logo. I’m still a little dubious that these are actually Descoware, but they might be some of the last pieces produced in Europe.
