©1999-2015
Wisconsin Pottery Association
P.O. Box 705
Madison WI 53701-0705
Gloria Grob & Victor Grob
Gloria Grob started her Pickard collection when she would rummage with her children in the 70's looking for depression glass. When pieces of porcelain caught her eye, she bought them. Her son Victor was great at finding items, because he was under the age of ten & most people just ignored him. With the aid of porcelain books, the family became quite familiar with the various marks. To further their knowledge, they cataloged their collection according to marks & signatures. They noticed that many signed pieces had the same artist but a different mark on the bottom. This is when they discovered Pickard China and started to buy as much as they could because the prices were so reasonable. But reasonable prices weren't going to last forever. In 1999 when Alan Reed published his book, "Collector's Encyclopedia of Pickard China : With Additional Sections on All Chicago China Studios ", everyone had instant access to the information that took the Grob's years to collect. The book did benefit them by filling in information about artists that they couldn't identify. The Grobs have decided to concentrate on collecting from the different companies that make up the Chicago Studios instead of just Pickard.