Description
Zeppelin tableware is very prized among collectors. Today we have an unusual offering to share with you, a gorgeous salad plate. You may have seen similar examples among tableware from the Graf Zeppelin(LZ 127) or the Hindenburg (LZ 129). The elegant plate sports a wide gold trim band around its rim, with a narrower blue band immediately below it. An even thinner gold band is located several inches further down, where it encircles the plates central depression. The plate measures 8″ in diameter. The plate’s face features a legend, “Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei,” encircling a globe that encloses a zeppelin. All of the latter is situated above and parallel to the plate’s six o’clock position, where it is intersected by the inmost thin gold band. [A three-quarter-inch hairline stress mark appears at the plate’s seven o’clock position, running from behind the second “p” in “Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei”(beneath the globe) down to the thinner gold trim band’s edge. It cannot be felt when one runs a fingernail over it. It appears to be under the glazing that was applied to the plate. We have included it in our accompanying photographs].
Here is where the plate differs from standard zeppelin tableware. At its twelve o’clock position, located halfway between the blue trim band and the inmost slender gold band is a blue oval. The oval contains the initials “WB,” rendered in white and stacked atop one another. Both the blue oval and the white initials are thinly outlined in gold. Certain important families who were zeppelin“frequent-flyers” often commissioned tableware for their private use when onboard. Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin’s daughter married into a family whose last name began with “B.” I do not have a firm lead on the family name, but I was told that they had a financial interest in the Zeppelin Company.
On the salad plate’s bottom, we see a hallmark for Heinrich and Company in Bavaria, who produced the tableware for the Zeppelin Company. The salad plate is in superb condition.
