Manufacturer: Carr China Company
Pattern: Glo-Tan Backstamp Designs
Date of designs: circa 1934

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Notes: Glo-Tan was Carr's trade name for its tan-bodied ware. In her book "Restaurant China Vol. 2," Barbara Conroy stated that it was made "circa 1940s-1952."

A friend asked not too long ago when we thought Glo-Tan was first introduced, and we spent some quality time looking at topmarked Glo-Tan pieces and then matching them to when those venues opened.

A good example is Sunny Croft Country Club in Clarksburg, W.V. (left), which opened in 1934, as well as New York City's Tavern on the Green (right), which also opened that year.

There's always the possibility that these venues chose other manufacturers for their first china orders, but a more compelling timeline comes from the collection of Judy Reed, whose father Paul Mattson was Carr's designer from 1934 to 1937. She has a Club Cassano plate on Glo-Tan that he designed, so that would definitely date the introduction of Glo-Tan to at least the mid-30s, if not 1934.

Carr's one major catalog that we've seen came out in 1934, and it did not contain any reference to Glo-Tan, so that also provides a marker to the date of introduction as being somewhere very close to 1934.

An article in the Grafton Sentinel dated March 14, 1935, announced Carr's "new product," its "Glo-Tan line of chinaware."

Above is an image that includes a variety of drafts that were produced for Carr's Glo-Tan backstamp. We think Paul Mattson was the designer of the logo; the final version is shown below. Pretty sure we're not alone in being grateful that the buck-toothed sun was not chosen.

This page shows what we believe to be another early example of the Glo-Tan backstamp in use.

Editor's note: This entry comes from the Carr China website whose content has been transferred to the IDwiki. An effort was made on that site to capture as many examples produced by Carr as possible, and for that reason they might include more mystery patterns and topmarked pieces, or those that might not ordinarily be thought of strictly speaking as restaurant ware.

Contributors:
Susan and Ed Phillips