Manufacturer: Shenango China
User: Idle Hour Country Club, Lexington, Kentucky
Date of plate: 1982

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Notes: According to the club's website, the Idle Hour Country Club was founded on Nov. 19, 1946 in Lexington, Kentucky, as an invitation-only club, with "clubhouse, dining facilities, golf course, tennis courts, fitness center, and swimming pool." From a story in the Oct. 4, 1946, issue of the Lexington Herald-Leader, a "syndicate of nine men" bought the former Ashland Golf Club with the intention of rebranding it as Idle Hour Country Club. (There are at least two other, unrelated clubs that go by this name, one in Georgia and one in Alaska.)

"Idle Hour has long been viewed as a vestige of segregation in Lexington," said a Nov. 10, 2015, story in the Lexington Herald Leader, which reported that barrier was broken with the admission of Sam Bowie, a former University of Kentucky basketball player. "In 1999, the state Human Rights Commission began investigating Idle Hour because it had no black members. The commission dropped the case … because it could not find a plaintiff who would assert that membership had been denied because of race. … Idle Hour officials said in 2006 that they were willing to have African-American members but that none had applied."

The plate – probably a service plate – has a wide band on the rim in kelly green with a coin gold line at the rim's edge and the verge. In the center of the well is the club's monogram/logo in the same rich green with a stylized H in the center bordered on the left by an I and behind it and to the right, two Cs.

Sources:
Club website
Lexington Herald Leader, Oct. 4, 1946 – Ashland Golf Club purchased
Lexington Herald Leader, Nov. 10, 2015 – Sam Bowie becomes first black member

Contributors:
olddominionchina: plate photos
Susan Phillips: author