Sought-after Bauer ware gets an updated spin
An L.A. firm has revived the classic pottery maker, producing a line of plates and other items that is nearly lead-free.
At a flea market in San Diego nearly 30 years ago, Janek Boniecki spotted a yellow dinner plate that changed his life.
"There was nothing else like it I had ever seen," said the London-born Boniecki, who then was a surfer and owner of a bodyboard business.
"The plate was heavy, solid," he said. "And such a bright, happy color."
On the flip side, indented into the plate, was the name "Bauer."
Dinnerware made by J.A. Bauer Pottery Co. of Los Angeles during the Depression and World War II years had become a darling of collectors because of its colors and retro designs. Prices skyrocketed, museums had Bauer exhibitions and books were written about the company's plates and other items that generations of moms and dads had used to serve meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
Unfortunately, you couldn't own a Bauer plate and safely eat off it too -- at least according to modern science.
Bauer ware, like much glazed pottery of its period, contained lead at far higher levels than what is now considered healthy. And the original Bauer company was out of business long before lead standards were tightened.
Boniecki now manufactures a line of nearly unleaded Bauer, slavishly copied from the originals.
His Bauer Pottery Co. of Los Angeles, which turns out 85 different Bauer items that are sold in shops nationwide and online, has 23 employees and last year had sales of $2.7 million. In October, he bought the 40,000-square-foot factory near San Bernardino where the pottery is made.
The route from surfer to retro pottery baron was not a direct line. Along the way he packaged travel tours for Costco Wholesale Corp., published a directory of filmmaking services and started a candle-making business in his kitchen. By the early 1990s, Boniecki had a well-paying job as a production manager for TV commercials.
Still, he was restless.
"I was in my 40s, and I started to see that in TV production, a lot of guys never survive past that," said Boniecki, now 53. "I began to look for something for the next stage of my life."
He had developed a love of Bauer and had collected several pieces.
"I decided one day to go looking for the trademark," he said.
The original company, founded in 1885 by J. Andy Bauer in Paducah, Ky., moved to the booming city of Los Angeles in 1910. Among the early products the Lincoln Heights factory turned out were outdoor pots and vases that fit in well with bungalow-style houses.
