One more for gallery

A different shaped 'Mother' mug, same flower deco as the one Ev found.

I said this when Ev posted hers, and I see it again here:

Despite the flower being similar to Royal Oak flowers (but not the same),
I reckon the glaze at the top is pretty typical Kermiko.

My transfer Kermiko mugs, jugs, pots and all have similar glaze at the lip.

Royal Oak (left) and Kermiko (right) jugs.

The handle also looks more Kermiko in scale than Royal Oak.

I'd love to see one of these close up some time.

(I haven't checked the shapes in the galleries at this time.)

I'm going to be bold and agree with Maryr on this one .....
Mainly because I've never seen a handpainted piece of Kermiko ..... yet!

You both have the advantage of having seen and touched them.
I'll see if I can get a look at Val's some time.

You will have to come out and visit these mugs one day Jeremy! I too very much doubt that they are Kermiko. They must be made by the same outfit, given the similarity of the graphics - but by who? One has a flat dry base, one has a rather rough attempt at a footring. The other one the same as Ev's (pictured below) is a bit rough - the top is not even level! Kermiko's ware is more carefully made, and I too have not yet seen a hand-painted Kermiko item.
Then again, I am not certain that they are Royal Oak, although that seems the most likely candidate at present. We must remember that there were kilns all over Auckland - all over NZ for that matter - used by other makers who had a go at manufacturing slipcast ware.  At this point we are still lacking a lot of knowledge about exactly who made what.

The glaze on this one certainly looks more like Royal Oak than the other two, and doesn't look at all Kermiko.

I agree about the regularity of Kermiko mug shape and irregularity of Royal Oak.

I know of two Royal Oak handle shapes, the standard pointy mug handle and the different one on your half-mug.

I have assumed that the double-handle coffee set is Royal Oak, so that will give a third. The very white lava glaze differs from the usual RO lava, but my bottle with two ring handles is the same white frothy and as the one you have in that shape has RO small flower it seems pretty certain.

There is one other set of handles that I believe may be RO and I say set because there are three different handles within what I see is a "set": coffee pot, milk jug, and mug. Check the auction.

[url=http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=699801884]http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=699801884[/url]

I have three issues with the Mother mugs being Royal Oak:

1. The flowers are vaguely like the RO flowers, but they are different, and amateurish whereas the RO ones are consistently neat and well formed;

2. That top ring of glaze, on the first two posted at least but not the one above, look more like Kermiko;

3. The shapes are entirely different and RO mug shape otherwise is entirely slavishly consistent.

The option of a different maker entirely is intriguing and indeed must also be considered.

The more I think about this, the more convinced I become that these 'mother' mugs are not Royal Oak. You are right Jeremy, the flowers are not like other RO.

There is a photo of one of these mugs on google from an auction on trademe last September and it has a sticker on it. The lisitng says Royal Oak ..... let me find it again... I haven't been able to enlarge this to read the sticker, but it looks the right sticker shape for Royal Oak. Scroll down to the enlarged pic ....
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=royal+oak+pottery%2Btrademe&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=6ZMTU-fSJsGQlQWtiYCACA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1093&bih=538#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=HXQ_dpTH1J1jWM%253A%3BusjvZlqGT5BBuM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages.trademe.co.nz%252Fphotoserver%252Fgv%252F10%252F232591210.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.trademe.co.nz%252Fantiques-collectables%252Fnew-zealand-maori%252Fauction-633218674.htm%3B233%3B175

Well then... I eat my words! I have peered and peered and can't read the sticker in the photo but the seller would be unlikely to put an item in a Royal Oak sale if it had a sticker from some other maker would he/she?  Another wee mystery sorted thanks to your perseverance Ev.

Thanks Ev.
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4/3/14
Well I picked up my own one now. It's a new Royal Oak shape for me.
With it in front of me I can see that the main glaze is an easy match for other RO mugs and different from Kermiko, but that top ring is so different from other RO.
As the Mother mug has turned up two new shapes for Royal Oak I'll have to look out for others now. My one:

I have been told that most of these 'mother' mugs were made by Owen Salisbury in his workshop when he was still part of Royal Oak but semi-retired. There was one decorator in the main factory who also did some.