Beach Find Identified
Sally Fall
Eagle-eyed reader Sally Fall spotted a little porcelain container in the article about Jean Curry’s Alaskan beachcombing finds in the last issue of Beachcombing and knew exactly what it was. “It is half of a souvenir salt and pepper set ‘Made in Occupied Japan’ for the American market between 1945 and 1952,” said Sally. Stores ordering the sets would have had their individual town names painted on the colorful shakers.
Jean Curry
“It is a little porcelain piece whose design could be Hopi. The Hopi of the American Southwest (Arizona) revered a number of different birds (eagle, chicken hawk, hummingbird) as spirits, and those spirits were all depicted with pointy beaks in the Hopi’s carved Katsina,” Sally says. The salt and pepper pieces also have the feel of Northwest Coastal totem poles with their carved ravens and eagles. “Someone on Jean’s island may well have gone to the Southwest on vacation and brought the shakers home as a remembrance of warmer climes.”
If you ever spot an error or can update us with more information on something in the magazine, please email us at info@beachcombing.com. If you have found something you can’t identify, or if you can help solve the mysteries from the beach at bit.ly/beachmystery, we’d love to hear from you!
This article appeared in Beachcombing Magazine Volume 48 May/June 2025.
