09-017.

Found on June 30, 2009 in Champaign, IL.

Russel Wright

Casual China gumbo bowl
Iroquois China Company
USA, 1946
8.25 x 7.75 x 1.75"
Glazed ceramic
Manufacturer's mark and facsimile signature

I love thrift stores. More accurately, I love finding great stuff in thrift stores. Stuff like this Russel Wright designed Casual China gumbo bowl.

Not long ago, Kate and I assembled a mental list of things we'd like to add to our Russel Wright collection. That list includes: more melamine Residential dinnerware, especially dinner plates and drinking glasses; pieces of American Modern glassware to fill in partial sets in our collection; several Casual China original shape mugs; and finally as many Casual China gumbo bowls as we can get our hands on. The gumbo maybe isn't the most glamourous piece from the Iroquois line and collectors don't put it on as high a pedestal as other shapes (it is kind of sexy, though, if you ask me), but it certainly is useful. We use it for hearty soups, chili, and stew, in addition to employing it as a serving dish. They are difficult to find — this is only the second I've found in a thrift store, with the last one surfacing way back in 2005 — so we never can seem to fill in this hole in our collection ... unless we broke down and resorted to eBay. But that's not something we're willing to do at this point, so fortunately the thrift gods smiled on me today and got us a little further towards achieving our goal.