I’ve only ever found a few Pacific pottery items in thrift stores and flea markets. There tends to be less of it sitting around. This is partially because they stopped producing it pretty early on in the 40s, and partially because it’s quite desirable as a collectible.

I don’t have the Pacific Pottery book yet, so my knowledge of the company is based mostly on what’s written in Chipman’s Encyclopedia. I’ll give some brief notes based on his Pacific entry:

The full name of the pottery was known as Pacific Clay Products Company and was actually a combination of several different potteries in the Los Angeles area. This happened around 1920. William Lacy was the architect of the consolidated business and the main plant was located on Ave 26 in Lincoln Heights, according to Chipman. A fun side note: today, there is an enormous thrift store (St. Vincent’s) and Goodwill just a few streets down just on the other side of the 5 Fwy. (However, I’ve never found any Pacific Pottery at those thrifts!)

In addition, the cross street close to where the main plant was is Lacy Street, presumably named after William Lacy. However, the main plant was actually the original 1890 site of the Los Angeles Stoneware Company. The original products that the pottery built up its name and reputation on were actually clay construction and structural items, as opposed to dinnerware or art pottery.

They switched to colored pottery dishes and other wares that were modeled after Bauer’s, who were having enormous success around that time. In particular, their Hostessware was extremely popular - rather than copying Bauer outright, they expanded the line to feature many different items. Their distinctive glazes and patterns also helped to popularize the pottery. Many of the patterns were actually handpainted. Pacific used many different designers, some from other potteries - but it appears not very much is known about them.

To the left is an example of a creamer in their Arcadia line - I’d earlier thought it was from Arcadia Ceramics because it wasn’t marked as Pacific. However, I later recognized the way the stamp was written in a circle, and the font. They made another pastel colored line like this called Coralitos as well.

They continued to produce dinnerware, gardenware and art pottery through the early 40s They also made tons of figurines around 1940-1942, when the plant actually switched over to supporting the war effort. They never switched back - interestingly, the company (or at least a company with the name) still exists. There is a website for Pacific Clay Products that focuses on bricks, pavers, tile and construction products. But under pottery, they state “Pacific Clay does not offer any products relating to Pottery at this time.” I’m wondering if like Bauer, they’ll eventually revive the pottery, either from reverse engineering the molds, or using existing molds.

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As far as marks go - there are a few common ones to note. They used inmold impressed and raised markings as well as paper labels. An old one is the word “Pacific Pottery” in a diamond shape. I’ve seen a few with “PAC USA” as well, or just the word “PACIFIC”, both of these in all caps. The one I see the most which is on dinnerware is shown in my pictures above. It is a circular mark with either the word “Pacific” or the name of the line (such as “Arcadia”) along with “MADE IN USA” and often the item model number. I believe there may be a few items that are not marked at all or just marked with “Made In USA”. But it may be just that the sticker has been removed.

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