Hermes Ashtray?

Could this be a vintage Hermes ashtray. Apparently they usually have some goatskin base so that may have come off with the brand label.

 

Why do you think this is Hermes?

 

It is the Hermes style, they had a range of Indian art inspired ashtrays, made in Limoges. I have no idea if there are fakes.

 

To my eye, looks like a Florentine paper motif.

Debora

 

I guess I haven't seen enough of their goods . But no marks at all seems odd to me for a luxury brand. How long ago would they have used goatskin on the underside?

 

Apparently, earlier ones did carry the mark on the goatskin. But quality doesn't look quite right. Unless you can find a duplicate with mark, I'd think "HÈRMES style" would be your best claim.

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/224476002059?hash=item3443cff70b:g:insAAOSwRptgr2Hm

Debora

 

Debora - Why did looking at the link you posted yield a listing in French for an ashtray with a Highland Westie dog as the decoration?

 

You're right. I see they also had one called "Les jardins d'Arménie", so they used motifs from different cultures.

 

The name on the back of the ashtray she posted is "West highland white", so a West Highland white terrier.

 

Did anyone happen to gander the little USD PRICE TAG on that little Westie????

 

Yup!

 

I just think its a nice ashtray, and Hermes make nice ashtrays

 

Without question.

Debora

 

It is nice, I'd almost consider taking up smoking.

 

It is certainly a very nice porcelain ashtray, but it doesn't look like any of the Hermes ashtrays I've seen on line. They all have Hermes in gold on the side of the ashtray, along with the leather base. Also, they don't tend to paint the cigarette lip quite like this one. Theirs is thicker gold and doesn't go all the way around the front of the lip.

 

I believe you've only looked a newer HÈRMES ashtrays. It appears the brand joined the branding craze when everyone else did in the 1980s and started marking their ashtrays with the HÈRMES logo and "Made in France" in gold on the sides. The vintage ashtrays had a more discreet logo stamped on the suede base (as my photograph shows above.)

Debora

 

I was once lucky enough to have a Hermes ashtray to sell from a job lot, with a handpainted carnival horse as its design. They are so expensive that it is hard to believe that an owner would be so careless as to lose the suede base if it was the area bearing the brand name, especially as most of the value of the object is in the branding! Maybe, if it got messy, but a possible pointer towards an imitation. I found mine was described as a cigar ashtray - very large indentations for the cigar - but also many are now being described as "vide-poche", which is a tray for a man to empty his pockets at night, to avoid losing or forgetting the contents the next day. A useful and apparently popular item in France. They are also being made now without the cigarette indentations, but there is no reason an ashtray couldn't be used for the same purpose. If you search for "Hermes vide-poche" you may come up with more designs. I think that even the printed ones must be made in very limited design runs, to maintain the luxury nature of the gift; I think they are made for "the man (or woman) who has everything". The prices are truly incredible, alas mine had a chip and sold for less than a tenth of the new price!

 

I suspect --- but can't prove -- that HÈRMES ashtrays are now being marketed as vide-poche because of the unpopularity of smoking and the scarcity of smokers.

Debora

 

Exactly, I should think that the market for ashtrays these days is shrinking rapidly, and the size and solidity of the Hermes ones makes them useful either way. I think many of them are beautiful, as is the one in this post, although lacking the proof that it is Hermes would make an enormous difference to the value, without definitive proof it is just a very pretty, useful, piece of printed porcelain in the Hermes style.

 

I've literally just sold a Hermes ashtray, with box. The goatskin wasn't branded, but the ashtray had Hermes markings in gold. That porcelain doesn't have the fineness to my eye.