Topic: Chances and not Chances?

[David E]

Jewellery? News to me as well! However, Chance workers did make 'friggers', such as fish, hopscotches, Christmas baubles, etc. so I suppose one of the workers may have produced something on the quiet. But being unofficial, they were never marketed by Chance.

But that merely supports my assertion that not everything is what it seems, and you cannot believe everything you hear :spls:

[David E]

An extract from an e-mail received yesterday from Tony Cartwright, at Chance's Fiesta department from 1959-81, ending as general manager:

I have certainly not seen item DSCF 2667 [the filename - D]  before, and dare I say it - I don't think we ever made anything quite as awful as this!  The fact that it is printed on the top surface virtually rules it out anyway unless it is gold or silver decoration.

So I think we can rule these trays out as being Chance: the 1950-60s abstract design is really unlike anything they produced, although I don't necessarily agree with Tony about it being awful as I rather like this retro design. Matter of taste, and I suppose it's the same for any generation being bought up in an era of design - my mother really dislikes Art Deco, for example.

Just to clear up one point: there are a few cases where Chance did print onto the top surface with white (mainly) or coloured enamels, and that was when using tinted or rolled-plate glass. I have a few examples where the design was printed onto Cotswold and Flemish rolled-plate textures.

[keith]

After reading your last post took another picture,blurry,but you can see the 'gold' infill decoration,does this help?

[David E]

No, it's OK - I have seen the set of four that Charles used in his book. Plenty of other candidates, but I'm sure they were not made by Chance.