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. Moby/Minnie were made with brown stripes and they were also made in solid yellow. I asked Walt Dworkin about the different
coloring on them and he got with John Howard... evidently the only reason they made some solid and some with stripes was to give customers more of a choice. |
