Porcelain whatsit?

The inside isn't long enough to hold a pen, however, I have seen a few slightly similar pieces called pen rests. The piece is 8" long, the inside is 5 1/2" long and 1 5/8" wide and 1 1/16" tall. No marks. Vanity trinket dish? Thank you. Mill

 

Perhaps a sugar cube tray?

 

Thank you. I searched Google and found a few in silver, same shape and close in size like this one.
Nothing in porcelain yet.

https://www.rubylane.com/item/739505-sterling28/Item-ID-sterling28-Shop-Backroom

 

I've seen similar things before, and wondered if they were for crackers.

I see modern ones sold for that purpose. But I've never seen any confirmation about the older ones.

 

Mill Cove, here's one in porcelain on Ruby Lane:

https://www.rubylane.com/item/409616-PCK-2995/Pickard-China-heavy-gold-footed-sugar

 

Thank you!! I was still searching.

UncleChuck, the cracker holders look similar but the measurements are much larger. I think the width on those are around 2 1/5" to 3".

 

Nice - first I've heard of a sugar cube tray. I was googling, trying to find an example of one with sugar cubes in it. The smaller width makes more sense now (sorry!). I was trying to imagine a pyramid-style pile of cubes in a tray, but on their pointed ends...

 

I found another one marked Pickard. Both are exactly the same shape/blank as my piece. The mark on those pieces was used between 1912-1918. Pickard was known for it's hand painted decorations and my piece is hand painted. Were all Pickard pieces marked?

 

Hi,
Definitely a sugar cube holder. I have several in sterling but only one porcelain one. It has a chipped corner but it was my great aunts.
greg

 

It helps to know what you're looking for. Now that I know what it is, I have found a few more and all of them are Pickard in this exact blank. I wonder why my piece isn't marked?

 

A couple of possibilities spring to mind: 1. It is not Pickard. Pickard used blanks from all over. You can find them with marks from Limoges, Noritake, and several German companies for example. It's possible that this same blank was also available to other decorating companies and maybe even to individuals. 2. It could have been decorated by Pickard but for some reason was not deemed worthy of being marked. Perhaps a practice piece or a test piece? I'm not sure if we'll ever know if one of those possibilities is correct.

If you're planning on listing this I don't think there would be any harm in acknowledging Pickard as a possibility. It may appeal to both sugar tray collectors and Pickard collectors. As far as I know all Pickard was marked but, of course, if some of it is floating around unmarked I'm not sure how we'd know. As a Pickard collector it would not appeal to me but I don't collect sugar trays. If I was collecting Pickard sugar trays I might purchase this as a novelty to display along side them.
Don

 

Thank you Don. I kept searching for quite a while. I couldn't find a single tray in this blank that was not marked Pickard (not that there were a lot of these out there). So I will take your advice and say it could be contributed to Pickard.