Northwood Grape & Cable Green 9" Plate
Description
In my working days, back around 1982, I was an Area Manager with SW Bell Telephone Company and had recently been transferred to Muskogee, Oklahoma. Of course, I was at work during the day time and Carol wanted to do something besides play bridge with the ladies weekly bridge group. She decided she wanted to be a realtor. So she signed up for a 4-month real estate course to become a licensed realtor. That took her away from home a few evenings during the week and, not wanting to be home alone without Carol, I decided to take the course myself.
After we were each licensed, Carol got connected with a local realtor. One day she received a call from a very nice elderly black lady who had just inherited her deceased Aunt’s home and she wanted to list the home with the agency for which Carol worked. I didn't want Carol to go by herself to that somewhat troubled section of town, so I tagged along. The house had been empty for many months and contained all the household goods owned by her aunt. One item in particular caught my eye, a beautiful old dining room table, chairs, and buffet that she said she was going to donate to the local Salvation Army. I politely said if she would name her price and sell it to me; then she could donate cash to the Salvation Army. She quoted a price which we readily accepted.
Carol also said if she were to sell the Fostoria stemware stored in an old home-made corner cabinet she would like to have first refusal. A few days later she called Carol and said she had decided to keep the stemware and was going over to wrap it up and asked if Carol wouldn't mind helping her. Carol met her there and helped wrap and load the beautiful stemware. Carol was collecting cake stands and asked about buying an old cake stand that was there. She wouldn’t accept any money; instead she gave the stand to Carol for helping her wrap and loading the stemware. It is still among Carol’s cake stand collection today.
A week or so later the lady again called Carol and told her that she had everything she wanted out of that house and asked if Carol would arrange to have someone haul the remaining "stuff" away. Well, we hauled several pickup loads of "stuff" down to Carol’s folks in Eufaula. They owned a service station that sat empty so we stored it there. Among the items were this green Grape & Cable Plate and a damaged marigold Ripple vase which we displayed on a shelf in our home. One of Carol’s bridge friends owned an antique shop and told Carol about the plate and said it was a pretty valuable piece. That was what got us started into the Carnival Glass Hobby.
Another humorous side story evolved from this. There were two very old baby bottles among the items we had taken; one had cats and the other had dogs formed on one side and the measurement lines on the other. When we decided to have our garage sale at the service station, Carol’s dad was there as we were pricing things. After I priced the baby bottles at $25 each, he picked one up and looked at me as if I was crazy. He said that “no one would pay that kind of money for that baby bottle”.
One of the first customers that came in was a lady who immediately spotted the two baby bottles, picked them up and took them to Carol and her mother who were taking payments. No request for discount was asked as she quietly paid $25 each for the two bottles. Her dad’s jaw dropped to the floor! I won’t say what we made from that two-day garage sale but it was substantial.
This beautiful keepsake plate measures 1.5" high, has a 3.5" base diameter and is 9" wide. It has the Basketweave back pattern.
The Jerry & Carol Curtis Collection
