I, Sam Laidacker, rather expected more response to a statement I made in the last paragraph of "Cup Plate Notes" in issue number 5 where I stated that, "In the next issue another conventional group, related by method of manufacture will be illustrated and classified." Well, here is one group and there are many mor~ to follow with different group associations. Get a lot of cup plates together and notice how similar many of them are. You can find a lot of things for yourself before they are presented to you in "The American An tique Collector". There are at least six group classifications. Can you find them? Start hunting and you will find the cup plates yet to be discovered. Of course, you have to have a set of Marble's numbers to do it, but gradually they are all being illustrated and classified on these pages. This group makes a total of 100 classified to date. Yes, that is a goodly percentage of real cup plates.

Now for this group. If you don't like the names I have given them, speak up with a better one. These illustrations are given to show THE CENTERS ONLY. Each one has the different kind of rims shown. That is, each design is found with each type of rim. Look at the cl!lssification. The number appearing under "Number" is Marble's number; the number under '"New" is the photo number in the new set and the one under "Old' is for the old set. This listing helps those who have either set.

The inner diameter of each cup plate is the same. Note how a little glass extends downward at the line of the center circumference. It does on each of the different groups. It is something in the method of manufacture. To anyone who has ever seen die stamping it means but one thing. That is, that the cup plate was made in a pressing machine with a plunger approach ing a mould. This mould was in two interchangeable sections, the center and the rim. In the a's of this group there is no rim but there is a rope effect rim top decoration, the design of which was on the plunger itself. In the cable edge in the b's half of the cable rim was on the plunger, too There are more designs in this group. Some are known in all three rims, others only one or two. The missing ones are yet to be discovered. I've given you the key to the procedure of study. Go to it and you'll have a lot of fun. You 'll have still more and probably less success in trying to get all of the cup plates themselves. Most cup plates of this type are found in Western Pennsylvania and farther west, and it is generally assumed that they were made in that neighborhood. Mrs. KnittIe informs me that she has a lot of unpublished information about cup plates in the form of original advertisements. All of us can wonder what it is. At any rate there is no end to collecting cup plates and it is "real collecting", not "accumulation". Lots of fun in it, competition between collectors and values have become pretty well established on most plates.