Buffalo Pottery's Unique Teapot

This article first appeared in the March-April 2020 issue of The Tea Life Style newsletter.

A friend recently showed off her gorgeous flow blue teapot during an online meeting, and it caught my attention immediately.  She mentioned that the manufacturer was Buffalo Pottery, and that the teapot had an infuser built in to the lid.  I was intrigued, because I used Buffalo China plates, saucers and bowls in my tea room.  We wondered if Buffalo Pottery and Buffalo China were the same company, but the meeting moved on to other topics and I forgot all about it until I began researching infusers for another blog post. 

A quick online search turned up the information that John D. Larkin established the Buffalo Pottery, in Buffalo, NY, in 1901, as a means to supply high-quality pottery and china for his mail-order company.  That online search also lead me to discover that there has been a book written on the subject:  “The Book of Buffalo Pottery” by Seymour and Violet Altman.  The Tea Ball Tea Pot is discussed on page 166, and a photo is shown on page 167 of that book.

The Tea Ball Tea Pot was made from vitreous china, and was manufactured as a premium (gift with purchase) for the Larkin mail-order company.  It was listed in their fall/winter catalog for 1915-1916, and sold for two dollars.

The bottom of the teapot is marked “CHINA, BUFFALO POTTERY, ARGYLE, 1914”

My friend was kind enough to share some photos of her teapot with me.  A quick perusal of Ebay will show that while many of the surviving specimens lack their tea ball (and are thus considerably less expensive than those with their tea ball intact), nearly all still have their lid.  This might be due to the fact that the two pieces were designed in such a way that it is virtually impossible for the lid to fall off while pouring the tea.

Buffalo Pottery became Buffalo China in 1956 as part of a restructuring of the company.  Throughout its long history, Buffalo Pottery/China produced several wildly different lines of pottery, including Blue Willow, Deldale, Commemorative, historical, holiday and advertising wares.  They also produced vitreous china for everything from hotels, restaurants, railroads, steamship lines, schools, hospitals, country clubs, to U.S. government agencies and branches of the U.S. military.

The company was sold to Oneida in 1983.  In 2004, Oneida sold the Buffalo factory, but still manufactures restaurant wares under the Buffalo China name.