ARABIA , Finland's leading pottery manufacturer, is now part of the Iittala Group.
Although it is not well known, ARABIA was originally a factory established in Finland by the Swedish company Rörstrand to produce pottery for Russia. The company's name comes from the fact that it was established in the Arabian district of Helsinki, the capital.
Currently, the production base has been moved to Thailand. We use the method of OEM production by granting permission to a local subsidiary and exporting pottery from Thailand to the world.
This kind of management is actually similar to marimekko , and the main production base is also located in Thailand. In the old days, both had production bases in Finland, but if you compare products made in Finland and products made in Thailand, the latter basically wins.
Finnish-made tableware has many parts that look ``sloppy'' from today's perspective, such as the traces of pillars called eyemarks and unglazed areas on the back of the tableware.
In addition, there is a story that cracks on the glaze surface called "cracks" passed through inspection as a matter of course, and at the time, they were sold in stores for the same price as a finished product. For better or worse, so-called vintage tableware is a product of a more generous era, and it is natural for the same product to have millimeter-level errors. Therefore, plates often do not fit neatly when placed one on top of the other.
(Intrusion seen around the logo)
Up to this point, vintage from Scandinavia doesn't seem to have much of an advantage, but its biggest charm lies in its color and luster.
This is because the color of the base china clay, the gloss of the glaze used in the painting, and even the color of the paint used on the pressed sheets, even when transferring prints, are overwhelmingly superior to those from older eras.
This is exactly what separates the reprints from the vintage vintage. The more vintage it is, the more you can feel that a great designer was dedicated to creating it without compromise.
On the other hand, the selling point of the reprint version is the sophistication that allows it to be mass-produced without even a millimeter of error, but its drawback is that it uses a different glaze from that time.
It is no longer possible to reproduce the pigment composition and formulation methods used at that time. The detailed combinations of formulations, the origins of the raw materials used, the detailed precautions for coloring, and the know-how of drying have probably been lost. Therefore, the vintage and reprint versions of ARABIA 's masterpiece Paratissi have completely different colors.
Paratissi is basically distinguished in the vintage market by its logo. The backstamp changes over time, such as the viola logo, leaf logo, crown logo, and black and white logo. This is a very easy-to-understand difference, so this is an indicator to distinguish between old and new, and it also leads to a difference in price.
However, the more fundamental difference is the degree of perfection as a product. Even with the difference in the logo mentioned earlier, the original vintage Viola logo paratissi has large individual differences, and the color tone can be clearly distinguished from good to bad depending on the item.
Paratissi, launched in 1969 , featured a viola (pansy) floral pattern for the first two years. From around the second half of 1971 , a leaf logo was produced in which the viola part was replaced with the ARABIA logo.
The reason why the logo has changed two years after its release is due to changes in the production system. This is because Paratissi has a more complete color scheme since the second logo. Although it is not very expensive in terms of price, I personally think that this second period paratissi is the most beautiful and gives you the feeling of ARABIA in its heyday.
The blue color is refreshing, the drawn lines are clear, and the white base is both off-white and glossy. Basically, the color of the second period is darker and stronger, and the rim of the cup is thinner.
Production of the Paratissi was actually discontinued in 1974 , just five years after it went on sale, due to the oil crisis. Even today, early models are still relatively common in the vintage market, so they must have been a huge hit at the time, but it seems that they have become unprofitable due to soaring fuel prices.
Due to its strong popularity, Paratissi was brought back to production in Finland in 1988 . This is called the crown logo.
Strictly speaking, there are two types of crown logos.
The color print used when it was resold in 1988 .
Although it is not clear when this will change, color printing has been replaced with a black and white logo.
Then, in December 2014 , we shifted to the current logo.
To summarize, it looks like this:
1969 Viola logo released
1971 Year stamping on ARABIA products has ended.
Late 1971 Leaf logo released
1974 Production halted due to oil crisis
1988 Production resumed
20xx black and white crown logo
2014 current logo
In the 1960s , ARABIA products had the month and year engraved on the back stamp to identify the production date.
However, that also ended in 1971 .
It seems that the production system was undergoing a transition period at the time, and some versions of the same viola logo had the year and month engraved on them, while others did not.
Therefore, Paratissi engravings are divided into six types.
Strictly speaking, the Paratissi prototype was produced in 1968 , so if you include this, there are a total of seven types of stamps.
It takes a lot of determination to collect everything, but please keep this in mind and take a look at the stamps in your collection. Once again, vintage doesn't necessarily look better based on today's values. I believe that old things have a unique quality to them, so I hope you will love vintage items the same way you appreciate works of art.