JSNY Country Calico Pig Mug, White Pig on Blue Floral, Made in Taiwan

The JSNY Country Calico pig mug is a plain, straight-sided white ceramic coffee mug wrapped in a blue calico panel of tiny white daisies, leaves and dots, with a white pig walking across each side. The pigs are left white and drawn in thin blue lines, with only their hooves picked out in orange-red. The bottom carries a small black transfer reading "©J.S.N.Y. / TAIWAN," and that mark is the only maker information on the piece.

No company history for J.S.N.Y. turned up in trademark, catalog or collector sources, though the letters appear on a wide run of inexpensive giftware: Christmas and Halloween decorations, fridge magnets, tins, salt and pepper shakers, figural children's mugs and banks. Sellers list some of it with Hong Kong marks and 1970s dates, and Taiwan-made J.S.N.Y. pieces with 1980s dates, such as an Old Dutch Cleanser tile trivet stamped "©JSNY 198_ TAIWAN" with the last digit hard to read. A few sellers expand the letters as Jeffrey Snyder New York, but no record confirming that was found. A New York business filing for a J.S.N.Y. Inc. covers only 1999 to 2003, so it may be a different company.

The pig belongs to a set of farm animal mugs that sellers call Country Calico. Listings pair it with a white cow on a red calico ground (with a green leaf and a yellow flower in its mouth), a chicken or rooster on yellow and a duck or goose on green, sold singly and in sets of two to four, and the same animals turn up on square ceramic tile trivets and on tin trays. A dealer dates a four-mug set to the 1980s, and so do most sellers, which fits the dated Taiwan pieces. The mark itself has no year, so the decade rests on that agreement and the company's other dated wares, not on a date printed on the mug.

This copy shows the full design on both sides with the pigs facing opposite ways. The glaze and print look clean in the photos, and the unglazed foot ring is darkened with grime, as most used copies are.