Manufacturers: Carr China
Pattern name: The Harvard*
Line treatment (Carr): L-22
Distributor: Fisher, Price & Co., Philadelphia
Date: Circa 1920s – 1930s

Carr China line style L-22 from 1934 catalog

Carr China L-22 line style from 946-47-catalog

For comparison, Carr-Ballaret, left; Carr Harvard, right

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Notes: The Harvard is a mystery among restaurant ware collectors, along with its three-lined look alike, The Ballaret. The Harvard is a name found backstamped on plain white china with three dark green lines, one at  the rim – approximately 1mm thick – and two more narrow lines set close together about 12-14mm away from the first (approximately 1/2 inch). The two lines and the space between them measures about 2mm.

The three-line configuration has been identified in both the 1934 and 1946-47 Carr China catalogs as L-22.

The backstamp date range is an educated guess, because there is not a known time frame for this arced backstamp, but with its lack of either the United States or Grafton, W.V., it seems to point to very early use in the plant history.

In spite of periodic searches for any school, restaurant, hotel – or any venue – with the name The Harvard (discounting the University by that name), nothing has turned up yet. So we're referring to this as a name for a numbered line treatment. One possibility is that the distributor, Fisher, Price & Co., ordered this decoration and branded it for their own customers as The Harvard pattern.

The Ballaret by Carr China and Warwick China

Photos contributed by Susan Phillips