Manufacturers: Carr China Company and Sylvia China
User: Travelers Lunch
Date of saucer: Unknown

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Notes: This saucer is beaten up but includes a couple of interesting mysteries.

The design on the front is clearly the Sylvia pattern, #6028, if it was made by Carr China. We've found other patterns called Sylvia, but none was the same as this. And it certainly looks like the same teal blue that Carr used so often for Sylvia.

But look at the backstamp: Sylvia China! We haven't been able to find any mention of a china manufacturer by that name, and it has left us wondering if by chance Carr adopted Sylvia China as a brand name at some point, with the ware ordered by a large distributor.

After searching for Traveler's Lunch or Travelers Lunch restaurants, it is obvious that there was more than one that went by that name. However, we think it was the Travelers lunch that was referred to in the lengthy July 18, 1993, story in The New York Times, titled "Streetscape: Bickford's: the Flaying of a Midtown East Art Deco Oddity. In it, the writer said that the first restaurant of the Travelers Lunch chain was opened by Harold Bickford in 1917 in Paterson, N.J. Bickford was the brother of Samuel L. Bickford, whose chain of quick lunch restaurants would eventually grow to 85 branches.

Architect for Travelers Lunch was F. Russell Stuckert, who was responsible for designing Bickford's restaurants and the Waldorf System in Boston, and who inherited his father's business – J. Franklin Stuckert – as a designer for Horn & Hardart automats.

The same story also said that "in 1923 Bickford's absorbed Travelers Lunch."

This information was confirmed in Volume 38 of The American Contractor, with location listed at Ellison and Washington avenues in Paterson and architect and engineer at Stuckert & Co. Owner of the property was John Walton Jr.

If anyone has ever come across a piece backstamped for Sylvia China, please let us know!

For additional info:
Sylvia – Underglaze Print Pattern 6028 by Carr China

Sources:
The New York Times – July 18, 1993
Google Books – Volume 38 of The American Contractor

Contributors:
Susan and Ed Phillips