Post #50218 by boutiki on Thu, Sep 4, 2003 5:07 PM

Greg,
Very strange. Do you have a picture of the back? I just looked at the other mugs we have of the same design but see no marking/embossing on the interior...EXCEPT the Huke Lau mug. The letters are visible on the inside– though more faint.

I guess that you can make changes to a mug after it's cast and before it's fired. So perhaps your mug was cast from the Huke Lau mold but since it was not to be used there, they shaved the name off the back... still leaving the ghost impression on the interior.

From what I understand from conversations with Munktiki, a mold will deteriorate over time (that would explain the variations in quality within the same mug design) so to mass-produce a mug you make "master mold" which other molds are cast from. Maybe Stuckie or Holden can explain this better as I'm sure they are much better informed than I. But it might make sense that OMC would perhaps use a mold that was on hand so they could fill a customer's order.

Very cool observation, and no, I don't think there is an end to this eternal quest!