There are quite a few California potteries that we haven’t listed yet in our reference, simply because there hasn’t been enough time to do so. In addition, sometimes there are those ambiguities or “complications” in the history or identification that are reason enough to put it off for another day. Although competition was fierce, many of the potteries used each other’s techniques, facilities, designers and inspiration. This leads to a wonderful, but intertwined history that needs to be unravelled on occasion.

This is the case with KTK of Burbank, although it isn’t as complicated as some of the other companies (one of these days we’ll tackle the ACP-Winfield-Gabriel-La Mirada saga). We actually picked up this nice leaf shaped dish over a year ago at the swap meet. This KTK is actually an offshoot of the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles pottery in Ohio. I’ve had some trouble figuring out the early history of the pottery, but it seems to have been formed anywhere from 1923 to 1939.

We come across these KTK items occasionally, sometimes they’re misattributed because people assume that they’re from the Ohio plant. The look, however, is definitely California pottery from the 1930s-1940s. It’s actually pretty similar to Haldeman Pottery, and KTK probably received some measure of technical and creative help from that company. Speaking of which, I’ve got to get Haldeman into the reference one of these days…