Holy shit... I can't believe it, after years I finally found it!
Backstory: Back when I was in college I happened across what would become my favorite mug, a vintage stoneware mug from the 70s that at a glance appeared to an unmarked Pfaltzgraff Yorktown.
...Problem was Pfaltzgraff never made mugs in this style. Which was a major deal breaker because the size and shape is perfect, not to mention I love the funky little dip under the handle. I've always assumed it was a knock-off because the design looks too tidy compared to the stamped on look yorktown usually has, but how the hell do you look that sort of thing up, especially 50 years after the the fact?
Finally I I had the bright idea to image search the blank side of the mug and I stumble across this:
It's a different color but it's clearly the same mug, by a Ohio based company called Royal China Co, from a line of stoneware called Royalstone that came in different patterns. (In regard to these two the blue is Ligonier while the brown is Lancaster.)
It seems like the company didn't mark their mugs, explaining why I've never seen them listed... though I'm sure it doesn't help that the company went under in the 80s, and I suspect they didn't make as much of it as say... their Cavalier Ironstone dinnerware, of which there seems to be so much of. (Hell I happen to own it in the casablanca pattern)
