Cleaning Historic Transferware

Antique transferware collector Scott T. Hanson shares his process for removing grime and under-glaze stains from historic Staffordshire transferware dishes. Using close-up photographs and clear text, the process is illustrated and described using two examples. Antique dealers have had their secret methods for cleaning these beautiful pieces of pottery but have not wanted the public to discover how it can be done. After ten years of trial and error and experimentation, Hanson has developed a method that will remove the deepest stains from virtually any piece of glazed transferware, returning pieces to the bright colors and clean white backgrounds they had when they left the Staffordshire potteries in the 19th century. Clear, close-up photos walk you through the entire process, step by step. Two examples are shown to illustrate cleaning both a typically stained and dirty piece and a badly stained and grimy piece. Also included is a concise description of the process used to create transferware in the Staffordshire region of England in the 19th century. Understanding how the pieces were made will help you to understand how they became stained under the glaze and how the method illustrated works to remove the stains. Scott T. Hanson is a Maine based architectural historian who collects antique transferware to display and use in his 19th century home, Whitten House. Using documentary research into probate inventories of members of the original family to own the house, and shards of historic transferware found under and around the house in the course of restoration, he was able to identify the exact patterns that were in the house during the time two generations of the Whitten family called it home. Searching in shops, flea markets, auctions, and online, he has slowly found pieces of the patterns the Whitten family owned and assembled a collection reflecting their time in the house. Scott Hanson is also the co-author of The Architecture of Cushing's Island, written with Maine State Historian, Earle G. Shettleworth, and published in 2012. He has appeared, along with Whitten House, on the television program "If Walls Could Talk" on HGTV.

Amazon Review
An extremely useful book
By LGL on February 28, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
We've collected Staffordshire Blue for years. We try to find the pieces we want in as pristine condition as possible, but sometimes a piece turns up that is stained but desirable in other ways. The approach outlined in this book is the first one we've tried that actually does exactly what the author claims. It isn't fast - it took us almost three months to do our test clean on a blue & white Victorian sugar bowl we'd been given that was badly stained. (And I do mean "badly" - it was brown in places.) At the end of the three months, following Hanson's directions exactly, it looks almost like new. After that we did an older piece, a sauce tureen by Hall, that wasn't as badly stained and required somewhat less time. It, too, looks pristine. Based on our experience with these two pieces, I think the approach is certainly worth trying, and thank the author for sharing the results of his experimentation. We bought the Kindle version of the book.

About the Author
Scott T. Hanson is a Maine based architectural historian who lives in a 19th century home, Whitten House, in the mid-coast region. He grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, before settling on the Maine coast. His most recent publication (and first eBook) is "Cleaning Antique Staffordshire Transferware." Using documentary research into probate inventories of members of the original owners of his house, and shards of historic transferware found under and around the house in the course of restoration, he was able to identify the exact patterns that were in the house during the time two generations of the Whitten family called it home. Searching in shops, flea markets, auctions, and online, he has slowly found pieces of the patterns the Whitten family owned and assembled a collection reflecting their time in the house. After a decade of collecting, he has brought back to the house many items matching those owned by the Whittens in the 19th century. As part of that process, he developed an effective and affordable method for cleaning transferware, which he shares in the book.