SHARED DESIGNS

Many tile manufacturers used the same designs in their tiles. This can cause confusion as to who made what. The best thing that one can do is learn about the different styles of decorations and the types of glazes that were used.

Taylor has a certain glaze type and style that helps to identify them as the maker to certain tiles. Tudor often is a little on the messy side and the colors seem to run into each other, although this is not always the case. Most Malibu and Catalina tiles are "black line" or "dry line" in decoration and are a little easier to identify--it also helps that there are some good books out there on just those tile companies. Taylor has also produced wonderful dry line tiles and there are many of them documented in the various Norm Karlson tile books as well as the Tile Heritage 2 volume set. I would recommend having Norm Karlsons northern and southern Ca region books as well as the Heritage 2 volume sets--both of these book sets are very very valuable in learning about tiles. I would also recommend Carole Coates book on Catalina Island as a great resource in learning about Catalina tiles and pottery. You can get info on the books here

D&M is my favorite tile company and they have a very distinctive glaze style that is a semi matte finish. D&M also had a very distinctive decorating style that is easy to identify once you are familiar with their tiles. Hispano Moresque is believed to have had their tiles produced by the D&M factory, but in all the tiles that I have seen by Hispano Moresque, the glaze type is a little different in that it it has more of a shiny finish than D&M. I have never seen a D&M tile that is really shiny like most Taylor tiles are. Hispano tiles are shiny like Taylor, but they have a different decorating style and glaze colors that helps to identify them.

There are of course tiles that are not pictured anywhere and have characteristics that make them almost impossible to identify. This is partly the reason that I built this site so as to help people identify their tiles, and to create a photo archive to log new examples into as I receive photos or I actually buy the tiles myself.

If anyone at any time has photos that they would like to submit to the archives, please let me know. As well, if anyone can ever help identify any tiles that I am not sure about, I would always welcome the help.

Here are some example photos of the most common pattern of tiles that I know of: The Racetrack Design. To date, I know of at least 8 tile companies that produced this pattern: Malibu, Taylor, Gladding McBean, Tudor, Catalina Island Potteries, D&M, and Hispano Moresque. I am still in the process of finding some photographs for some of the makers.