John and Robert Howard grew up in Massachuetts.  They met Grant Holt of Illinois while all three were students at Amherst College. Their families encouraged them to go into business for themselves and loaned them $9,000.. thus Holt-Howard Company in 1949 was started in an apartmnet in Manhattan!  In the early days they were not in the importing business and conducted their business in the US.  The first 10 years was concentrated on Christmas items, many of which Curt Blanchard designed.  In the late 50's they came out with Pixieware.  Eventually Holt-Howard was bought out by General Housewares Corporation in 1968.  By 1974 John, Bob and Grant left the company.  John Howard remains active with Grant-Howard Associates.  Curt Blanchard hooked back up with John and a few years back designed some new pixies.

Holt-Howard came out with a series of little kid-like mermaids in 1959 called Minnie & Moby and referred to them as "mer-moppets."  Minnie & Moby adorned a host of ceramic items for the bedroom and bath.  They made a Minnie & Moby powder jar and pill box, a Minnie cotton ball dispenser, Minnie soap dish and tumbler, a Moby Matchbox and ashtray, Minnie & Moby atomizer set, Minnie & Moby bath bottles, nailfile, brush set, and the Moby and Minnie Seahorse Wall planters.  All these are highly collectible and very expensive.

Although these are gorgeous mermaids, I collect Holt Howard pixies so I have never purchased any of the Holt Howard mermaids.  The pictures here are collected from eBay sellers.  6 years ago I saw the Minnie and Moby on the seahorse sell on ebay for for $275 each... I thought that was high back then.  A few months back I saw each of them go on eBay for close to $2,000.... yes, two thousand dollars!  I do think that was a one time bidding war tho.  But no doubt all the vintage mermaids just go up in value each year!  The ones on the seahorses seem to be the most desirable and sell for the highest prices.