Mini Sugar Bowl, Salt Cellar or something else?

Hello, I'm trying to figure out if this wee 1918 (?) Noritake piece is for dolls or perhaps was used for salt (for humans.) And does anyone recognize the pattern? TIA!

 

Isn't that cute? What size is it? Possibly a mustard jar from a condiment set.

 

Mustard, that is.

 

Probably part of set with tray and shakers. Most of these were not named patterns.

 

Hm, mustard! I didn't think of that. It's only about 2" wide and not quite 2 1/4" tall. Here's what the little spoon looks like:

Ah, I see. Thank you!

 

Agreed, a little mustard pot.

 

maybe even, hot mustard !!

 

Adorable! If that tiny printing says Made in Japan, it's probably 1921 or later, when the US required the country name on imports.

 

Alden shows the date of the stamp as 1918 - 1941. Alden states "Noritake made many variants of this stamp and it was used, with modifications, until the closing of the New York office of the Noritake Company in 1941." Could be as early as 1918 but I think depression era is more likely based on the decoration.

 

If it's proper mustard, you don't need much of it.

 

Thank you all for your help! It will be fun to keep an eye out for little pieces that match it. It's really quite sweet. I have a second one with no spoon that I'll likely eBay, but I'm keeping this one.

 

I believe you are correct. To my knowledge, the Noritake back stamp came into being along with (second) US Tariff Act of that year demanding imports be labelled with country of Manufacture. 1891 to 1921 is regarded as the "Nippon Era".

 

Yes, I did know about the Tariff Act, but got confused by this information I found on the Noritake Collectors Guild site. All three of those marks, including the pale green, say Japan, but they are saying the green was used from 1918. (I should have known mine, which is red, came after that, though, even without considering the discontinuation of "Nippon.") Oops - edited to remove the photo. Don't want to violate copyrights.) Anyway, they show a transitional mark like mine that goes from green to red to blue starting in 1918.

 

I think you may be misreading the site information. The different colors represented different factories, not different time frames, according to my references.

 

Ooooooh. Thank you. I'm super new at this.

 

No worries. Noritake marks are very complicated.