Crown Lynn Eggcups discussion : To be or not to be Crown Lynn?

I will start this off by referring to an extract from Val Monk's book pages 58/59 where she mentions Rod Hendry and how he used moulds of six egg cups and would speedily make many.
Perhaps when Val has finished unpacking she can enlighten us further .....

Yes Please Val.

I have done a search of my interviews for info about the early egg cups. Unfortunately the story about Rod Hendry (told to me by Colin Leitch) is buried somewhere in my hand-scrawled notebooks. Below are references from my transcribed interviews. Nothing new I am afraid - no list of shapes! From memory, Colin talked about the smoothness and speed with which Rod Hendry used to fill slipcasting moulds then take out the finished egg cups - in an endless sequence.

Colin Leitch (initially the accountant but held many other roles during his lengthy time at Crown Lynn)
There was a hell of a lot of Easter eggs (egg cups) in particular were made that way in clay moulds - you would have about six of them in the one mould. They were very very popular at Easter time. They used to mass produce those.

Sir Tom Clark – established Crown Lynn and was the driving force behind it
Val: Egg cups… we all grew up with... every Easter we got an egg cup.
Tom: Egg cups were either once glazed, or el cheapo second glaze, most of the egg cups that were el cheapo would have been done in the old days before the new kiln was organised. Then some would have been in the Prouty kiln.
Val: It just seemed one of those little New Zealand things that you guys must have made thousands and thousands and thousands (of egg cups).
Tom: Yes. For bugger all profit. The price was very low.
Val: There were lots of different shapes so there would never have been big runs. Now they are being bought and sold on the internet.
Tom: Are they? Amazing.
Val: They have no stamps on them.
Tom: I have no idea. Because we produced god knows how many over the years, sometimes for special customers, sometimes for special promotions, there was never any... they were just potboilers.
Val: But if there’s a market for it you make it.
Tom: Yeah.

This last item refers to the 'modern' shape egg cups, not the animal versions. It is from a phone interview with Stuart Spurr (who set up and ran the seconds shops during the 1980s) It suggests there should be a lot of those egg cups with nursery transfers around. Where are they?

The Easter blunder – I decided I was gong to do nursery ware for Easter. I did a deal with Cadbury’s for millions and trillions of Easter eggs and decorated (standard shape) egg cups with nursery rhyme figures – Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo Peep etc. they were sold at half or a quarter the price of other manufacturers but nobody bought my Easter eggs. I cringe at the thought of how many of those darn Easter eggs we were eating... with a runny centre.