PM&M page [USA / New York / New York (03)]

The company hiding behind the abbreviation LDB&Co. slowly and quietly crept in on me. Years ago, there was nothing to be found online and so I created this page as to make it easier to present the small scraps of information that surfaced now and then. Well, the GMT page started off with even less!

At least it was clear from the start that LDB&Co. was not a manufacturer as their marks appeared on far too many different item groups. For example, one can find LDB&Co. New York markings on metal lamp bases as well as LDB&CO. N.Y. marks in the base of metal clock casings next to a few hints towards patent registrations (cigar lighter, 1928). Its marks are also found on manufacturer-marked items, which would leave the minor possibility of a decoration studio. But there was no difference between items with or without an LDB&Co. mark, and in some cases it was found in combination with a known decoration studio mark.

So no, LDB&Co. was definitely neither a manufacturer nor decoration studio. And that was it, at least for quite some time.

It was not until I received emails from Vickie Costello and Kirstin Greenlaw that I decided to add a little more on the page here as they both brought this one back into my mind and more or less confirmed what had been tickling the back of my brain for ages: LDB&Co. was the company of Leon D. Bloch & Co., an importer of china and glass (as well as trader in furniture and home decor) at one time located at 37-41 E. 18 Street, New York. Even if I do not have any precise dates, this business was around before 1875 and still existed in 1928 (if it survived the 1929 stock market crash and the aftermath thereof is to be doubted).

Comment(s)

Of course some marks can easily be linked with Moschendorf or the Schmider factories. The "Prince Regent" version is however a different matter as it is highly peculiar, at least for me. Using leading and trailing double quotation marks for a name is one matter, but they are also used in what people may call "publishing style": the leading ones are positioned as lower set, the trailing ones as high set. And they include a full stop. Not enough, the name comes with an apostrophe or whatever at a position that does not make any sense at all. Nobody in Germany would write, present, or enclose a name in that way; it simply hurts: „Princ'e Regent.” ... seriously?

Next to the typical "Prince Regent" marks, the most common other rendition is the Flambeau China torch mark with included "LDBC" that is often found in combination with the star mark used by the successor of Coiffe & Laviolette; the remaining Laviolette business was the last to use this dark green star-shaped mark. I could never make heads or tails of it: was Flambeau a mere export and trading company (claimed to have been operational between the 1890s and 1914) or a mere trademark used by LDB&Co. ? Sorry, but I'm not desperate enough to actually start asking French people about all this ...

Marks