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. The Minnie and Moby on seahorse wall
plaques seem to be the most rare of all the mermaid pieces. You rarely see them come up for sale and when you do, they are typically the solid yellow seahorse. There was also a limited number of sets made
with brown stripes and these are very hard to find and sell for more than the solid yellow set. Both are beautiful but the ones with stripes obviously took more time to create and are a lot more pleasing to the
eye than the solid yellow set... but it all depends on what you like! |
