21 December 2006

The Very First (and possibly last) Immodest Proposals BABE of the WEEK (2006 DEC 21 Edition)

I'm not the first blogger to think of doing a "Babe of the Week", and usually these sort of things aren't done on Wednesdays, but I have some photos I took today of a real "Babe" from Japan.

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Probably not what you were picturing initially. It's Babe the Blue Ox as a creamer. It's pre-WWII Japanese hand painted ceramic, possibly valuable, probably not. Made back when "Made in Japan" was synonymous with crap.

If James Lileks ever visits this site, he'll see those shots and his head might 'splode.

A Minnesota legend, in tchothke form, and it's pre-WWII.

(but then, there's the very real possibility he already owns one)

3 comments:

bill said...

I should know more about this since wife's father has some Japanese dolls and porcelain (he went to high school in postwar Japan while his father served in the U.S. Navy). I think most are occupied Japan, though I'm pretty sure some of the dolls are pre-WWII.

Check out this site. Things I learned: the stamp "Made in Japan" makes it post-1922. Before that, it would have read "Made in Nippon."

Scrolling through, I didn't see your mark. I bet if you posted the photo to their forums you'd find out everything you ever cared to learn.

XWL said...

Thanks for the info and links.

My mother muddled the story about that creamer somewhat. Most likely it was picked up by my grandfather while he was stationed in Hokkaido during the occupation, He was stationed near Sapporo, so the S stamp might stand for that, but not sure.

bill said...

And to state the obvious, Lileks is a North Dakotan, not a Minne-SOH-tan. He's seems to have nuked all his old writing from lileks.com, but the Washington Post still has his Fargoan review of "Fargo".

Though the phrase "that's different" is also, Minnesotan. My wife had read that article before her first visit to Minnesota and when she first heard it used in the Lileks' sense she just about died. Now if something is described as different we have to ask: "Do you mean "interesting" different or "Minnesota" different?