That tiny pottery shard took me 6 hours to ID properly

I found this little piece of painted pottery out behind an old farmhouse in rural Ohio. Thought it was just some local 19th century stuff at a glance. Spent a full Saturday going through state museum records and old trade logs. Turns out it matched a specific central Ohio potter who only operated between 1824 and 1836. Should have been a 20 minute check but the glaze color was faded by two centuries of weather. Anyone else waste way too much time on one small find?

2 comments

2 Comments

angelar571mo agoMost Upvoted

Give that timeline some credit though. You basically did a historical deep dive that most people would skip, and now you've got a solid ID with provenance to back it up. Six hours beats kicking yourself later for mislabeling something unique.

garcia.laura1mo ago

lol "historical deep dive that most people would skip" - oh man that reminds me of this time I spent like 4 hours trying to figure out if this old hand crank drill I found was from the 1890s or 1910s. My buddy was like dude just call it old and move on but I had to know. Turned out it was a 1908 patent which is honestly not that different from a 1910 one but still felt good to pin it down. Six hours really is worth it when you consider how often stuff gets thrown out or sold cheap because nobody bothered to look it up.