Salt and pepper shakers are ubiquitous on our dining tables and food preparation areas.
We couldn’t manage without ours for sure. John Mason, the inventer of the Mason Jar is
credited with inventing the first salt shaker in 1858 – although they took awhile to catch
on. Before that people used salt cellars with little spoons for the table and for the
kitchen, salt pigs or salt boxes. Cruets refer to various arrangments of oil bottles,
vinegar bottles and mustard pots with and without salt and pepper shakers but usually
held in a carry-all or on a tray. S&Ps and cruets are highly collectable owing to their
size, variety of shapes and decorations and their use in many countries. We have come
across two museums that have dedicated collections of Salt and Pepper Shakers. One
is in Castell de Guadalest, Spain (here), that has over 20,000 salt and pepper shakers from around the world. We haven’t been there but we believe their manifesto that says that S&Ps are “A really great exhibit of art and culture, dating from the nineteenth century to the present”. 20,000 shakers is a lot! But hang on there is another museum in Gatlinburg, a mountain town in eastern Tennessee,
USA (Here) and they spruik that they have 20,000 Salt and Pepper Shakers too! How many are in your collection? We have found there is a connection between these museums – see this very interesting article in the Smithsonian Magazine.

Many of the novelty S&Ps we so love were made in Japan during the post-war occupation of that country (1945 – 1951) as communities were finding new ways to financially recover
from the war. All goods destined for the USA had to be marked “Occupied Japan” or
“Made in Occupied Japan”. Post the occupation the back stamps have “Made in Japan”
or “Japan”. From Germany we have the beautiful Goebel kitchen ware and these S&Ps
fetch a high price. They are of a superior quality. There are many more manufacturers
out there and much more can be discovered by joining a collectors club. We are going
to look at this one, (here) – as we quite agree with their
sentiments “Your collection will mean more to you if you learn about it”.

Hariet Senior finds the Carlton Ware vegetable S&Ps to be her favourite, followed by
the floral embossed ones in the Salad Ware collection of Carlton Ware. At The Hariet
Emporium we have started to offer S&P in thematic collections. They don’t cost much,
are easy to post and they don’t take up that much display room. Have a look at our Pea
and Carrot, Vegetable Collection and funky Horse and Cart sets. They are such great
fun to collect. If only these vintage S&Ps could talk – we would be in for a treat of dinner
time discussions and family happenings.

We hope 2023 brings you many wonderful moments of collecting your favourite things.

Kind Regards,
The Hariets