Panama Pottery Feature

Interesting feature article:

In the first few decades of the last century, Sacramento's Panama Pottery created art pottery that may appear roughly thrown or hastily colored.

Today, those same characteristics are hallmarks of what is increasingly collectible work.

Panama Pottery operates today on the original site – 24th Street between the railroad tracks and Hollywood Park – on which it opened.

Though operation has been nearly continuous, there hasn't been the same continuity with respect to the original artistic styles.

Aside from the site, much of the company's origins are mysterious. Even the year Panama opened is uncertain. The modern business says 1913, but the place first shows up in the Sacramento City Directory in 1914.

That makes sense because 1914 was also the year the Panama Canal opened, though there is some evidence the pottery opened earlier and only got its name in 1914.

"That's why he called it Panama Pottery," said Mike Allgood, a collector and dealer who co-owns Mike & Greg's Fine Antiques in east Sacramento.

The "he" to whom Allgood refers was Swedish immigrant Victor Axelson, the first listed manager of Panama Pottery.

...Panama made Arts and Crafts-style vases, nesting bowls, cups and urnlike jars that Allgood thinks may have been inspired by funerary objects found in King Tut's tomb when it was discovered in 1922.

...Panama still makes flowerpots, using age-old equipment that manager Carol Honda aptly describes as machinery out of "The Flintstones."