Very little is known about Meyers Pottery other than they produced a line of solid-colored dinnerware, art and garden pottery in the mid- to late-1930s out of their facility in Vernon, California. Their dinnerware line, California Rainbow, is highly derivative of some of the larger potteries’ designs, specifically Pacific and Bauer. The California Rainbow mark is typically visible on larger items like plates, but is sometimes hard to see under the glaze. Most serving and smaller pieces are unmarked. You’ll find Rainbow in eight colors: turquoise, green, ivory, rose, orange, blue, yellow and black – some gloss and some matte finish.

I have a handful of pieces in my personal collection, but due to it’s scarcity, it’s really hard to put a set together. Collectors will more easily find the two carafes, tall and short, and the occasional dinner or luncheon plate. The tall carafe is either found with a metal or wooden handle. Lids were either optional or got lost over time: It’s tough to find them. An almost identical tall carafe was produced by Paden City Pottery (Paden City, WV) as part of their Caliente dinnerware line. The Caliente carafe features a bakelite handle.

In all my collecting travels, I’ve only met a couple of people who specialize in Meyers. It’s very localized to southern California. With no information available about the company and its limited production run of pottery (they likely went out of business around 1940s – most manufacturing companies were required to switch to wartime production and those that couldn’t (or wouldn’t) weren’t allowed to make capital improvements in their business) There is a significant collection available for view in the California Heritage Museum in Santa Monica, California, on loan from a collector.

Meyers California Rainbow (aka “California Colored Pottery”)

Many large dry goods and general stores issued large catalogs of goods that consumers could order. This page features Meyers “California Colored Pottery,” a generic term probably assigned by the catalog producer. Many pottery companies in the 1930s “white-labeled” their pottery for larger discount department stores, meaning that the pottery manufacturer or name would not be featured. This is the only page I could find, but you can see the bleed through on the other side with more Meyers. Unfortunately, there’s no complete record of the Meyers dinnerware line.

Identifying Meyers

Meyers California Rainbow Mark

With the exception of plates, Rainbow is generally not marked. Here’s a nice example of the California Rainbow in-mold mark. It’s pretty unusual to find one this clear. The “Meyers” name is never part of the mark.

Meyers & Bauer

Meyers California Rainbow looks very much like other ringware patterns, like Pacific, Bauer and Garden City. Identifying Meyers can take a practiced eye. Here’s an example of the Meyers short carafe (on left) compared to Bauer.