Vintage Thingie Thursday

I found another photo “meme,” or forum, to participate in called Vintage Thingies Thursday, brought to us by the Colorado Lady. She has a whole site devoted to recipes, antique china, quilts and lots of other delightful vintage things, so if you are into that kind of stuff, check her out!

Thursday is the day she devotes to allow folks to showcase their vintage treasures and to share their special things with everyone.

This is my first time posting a picture of a vintage thing. This is a picture of one of my Jewel Tea Aladdin teapots. I like it so much, that I have two of them. It is very cool, because it has an insert that holds the tea inside the pot while it steeps. I also have several other jewel tea tea pots, as well as tea pitchers, an electric coffee pot, bowls and lots of tea cups and dishes. I have bought most of these items off of Ebay.

Although many people refer to Hall’s most popular dinnerware pattern as “Jewel Tea,” these dishes originally left the factory without a name. In 1943, the company began referring to the pattern as “Autumn.” The name changed again in 1969 to “Autumn Leaf.”

Autumn Leaf dinnerware often made its way into American homes through “The Jewel Man,” a door-to-door salesman employed by the Jewel Tea Company of Chicago. This pattern became so popular that the company branched out to making all kinds of accessories, including glasses, cookware, refrigerator inserts, tablecloths, tea cloths, casserole dishes, trays, canisters and even playing cards!

This china pattern is dear to me because my grandmother owned a whole set of it, which she used in her kitchen when I was a child. I don’t know what happened to all of it, but one piece, an 80 oz. Ball Jug Pitcher, went to my mother. She used that pitcher to make sweet iced tea in every day of my childhood. Whenever I was thirsty, I went to the refrigerator and poured myself a cup of sweet tea out of that old tea pitcher.

Years after I was first married, I begged my mother to give me the old tea pitcher. It is not the one pictured here, but it is my most prized possession. Soon after I acquired it, I discovered that flea markets often had vintage jewel tea dishes and accessories for sale, and my collection began.

One of my dreams, is to someday own enough of it to be able to set a table with it, and leave it out as a display. Sometime in the next couple of months, our building contractor is going to start working on adding a room onto the back of my kitchen, and then I will have a big enough dining room to hold the furniture that I want. My dream is to own an old fashioned farmhouse style dining table, with benches for seating and a big china cabinet to hold my jewel tea items.

I am trying to decide what color to paint the dining room when it is finished. My house is decorated with cool blues and greens, with a “beachy” theme. I’m not sure the warm colors I am leaning towards will “go” with all my other rooms, but I am considering a coffee color for the walls, with a bright white trim. And since this room will be connected to the kitchen, perhaps re-doing my blue and white kitchen with a warm gold.

What suggestion do y’all have? What color scheme would you use to decorate a dining room, in order to best show off a collection of these jewel tea autumn leaf dishes?