The Couroc Company was a Monterey California company that produced many different types and shapes of trays, boxes, ashtrays and glassware from 1948 until their closure in the early 1990s.  Their products have become and remain collectable because of their high quality and beauty.

Guthrie Courvoisier, owner of Courvoisier Galleries in San Francisco formed Couroc in 1948.  His wife, Moira Wallace was a designer that was involved in designing manufacturing - sometimes even 'signing' her work.  Couroc was formed in Monterey an area that held strong artistic communes at the time.  Being located in a beautiful part of the Pacific coast had other advantages, Couroc relied on a plentiful supply of natural design elements, especially coral and shells.

Couroc's Early Years

Prior to the war, Courvoisier had worked with the Walt Disney Company and brought the first commercially available animation cels to market.  These cels are still known as "Courvoisier Cels" and are quite valueable today.

Courvoisier gained valuable experience with plastics while participating in the war effort.  Courvoisier soon began to put this experience to work - he and his wife began to tinker around with new techniques of producing household items with superior design.  The first generation of Couroc products were made of a heavy translucent material that was extremly prone to shattering.  The name Couroc was an amalgamation of 'Cour'voisier and 'rock' as in hard-as-a-rock.  These early pieces have early Couroc labels so the name was derived while their products were still highly breakable.  The products in that first generation tended to be large bowls and cake trays.  After much experimentation, however, the Courvoisiers created a proprietary formula of phenolic resin that was durable enough to form into trays.  This formula was extremely durable and resistant to alcohol and flame.  While this formula has changed over the years, that proprietary recipe served as the basis for several decades work.

In the early years, Courvoisier ran Couroc a little like an art-commune, employing many skilled artisans. During these early years, the artists carefully arranged bits and pieces of common metal items one might find at a hardware store into elements of the design. Items like springs, screws, glitter, safety pins and paper clips were commonly part of Couroc's best designs. The artisans also used pieces of brass and other metals and carefully bent them into shape.

Here is an example of an early Couroc tray:

During this period, Couroc likely made use of personal contacts within the entertainment industry to produce a number of trays for various NBC shows such as "You Bet Your Life"  or "This is Your Life".  In the latter case, clues to what these trays were used for can be gleened from the label:

"THIS TRAY IS SENT WITH GRATITUDE TO YOU ON BEHALF OF THE PRODUCTIONS WHICH ARE REPRESENTED BY THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC
CAPRICORN "IT COULD BE YOU"
TAURUS "THIS IS YOUR LIFE"
 GEMINI "TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES"
and the "This is Your Life" book is filled with best wishes for you always, Ralph Edwards."

Yes, Ralph Edwards, as in "a Ralph Edwards/Stu Billett Production".  Clearly they were giving these trays out as promotional items - high end gifts for participants and such.  The "You Bet Your Life" tray pictured above is a special made gift for John Guedel, the producer of the show.

Manufacturing Methods

Couroc's method of manufacture is not entirely know - Courvoisier guarded his secrets well.  What is known is that a combination of high heat and high pressure was used.   Molds, or “preforms” were clearly used for the overall tray forms but it is difficult to discern exactly how the inlay was created by the artists.

The process seems to have been that an artisan would lay out the design of the inlays into a preform in a machine.  Once the design was laid out, the machine fused the tray and design under great heat and pressure. 

You can pick up subtle variations in the molds that they used. For example, the large Couroc tray is 18" x 12" but there are actually two distinct sizes of large tray.  When you have an example of each next to each other you can see the difference.  That are just a little bit off and don't nest correctly - one is larger than the other by about 1/8th of an inch.  It is one of the interesting little things that makes Couroc fascinating.  The "large" large tray is far less common but I am certainly not calling it rare.

Early Couroc pieces had no molded signature on the underside.  Later pieces do although there are several different type of signatures.

The foot that Couroc used on their trays changed over the years too.  It evolved from a little stump to a stump with a point and then moved closer to the final, concave foot profile.  The labels changed from a white paper label with green printing to a gold label with black.  There are many variations of labels and many special labels for certain trays.

As previously mentioned, the phenolic resin that Couroc used changed over the years.  Early Couroc has a bumpier effect to the surface and was not quite black in color.  Later Couroc developed a smoother, blacker resin resulting in a remarkable black satin finish.   Couroc occasionally used green instead of black although these are very rare.

Couroc's Later Years

Couroc's founder was involved with the arts until his death in the 1970's.  Afterwards the company was sold several times, at one point even being owned by RC Cola.  The later Couroc years tended to rely less on the layout talents of artisans.   They show a greater reliance on larger pre-made designs during the later years.  While the early trays were much more individual and unique, later tray designs were far more standard.

Couroc often employed trendy or whimsical themes to design.  Couroc influenced and followed design preferences for four decades - that is one of the things that makes them particularly collectable.  One can see America's design preferences change through Couroc's products.  Couroc's early trays are known for "modern" design while the 1970's Couroc trays tended to be "Mod".   See the difference? 

Some of the designs are particularly thematic, for example, in the 1980's Couroc released a series of mosaic and eygptian themes.  These probably coincided with National Geographic's publishing of the Pompeii/Herculaeneum excavation in which fantastic mosaics were unearthed from the ruins of an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 ad. The travelling exhibition of King Tut also caused a mojor cultural trend which I believe spurred Couroc to produce a series of Egyptian themed trays and other items.   

While tastes differ, some of the most desirable trays are the aquatic scenes, mosaics, abstract "atomic" bird characters, Walt Disney Tiki Room and the 1950's Capitol Records Tray.
In Couroc's middle and later years there were many joint ventures in which Couroc produced trays for high-end Department stores such as Nieman-Marcus, Filine's and Macy's.  Several top universities  (Wellsley and Smith) had trays made that featured their school crest or landmark.  Couroc also worked with several trophy and award manufacturers to product many award items, especially for golf tournaments.  There also seems to have been more of a focus on regional sales for a while, lighthouses and train stations for example.  These items were probably sold locally only.
Couroc trays were always expensive.  The only time I have ever seen a new one offered for sale, it was priced around $165 dollars - and that was in the 1980s.  Couroc was very high end and only sold by top merchants.  Having your own Couroc design (as in the Hotel Del Coranado, for example) was probably a status symbol.

You can see Couroc pop up all over if you watch for it.  Recently I noticed that there is one being used by Jeniffer Aniston in "Along Came Polly".  Her character is using one as a lapdesk while she tries to make plans with Ben Stiller's character - a perfect use for these trays as they give a rock hard writing surface.

So that is what I know about Couroc in a nutshell.  I will be adding more to this as I learn more and I ask that anybody with information about Couroc please contact me.  I will also be adding photos of Couroc details (like labels and feet).  Please peruse my other guides and by all means use the "safe shipping" one.  Send it to sellers when you buy a tray - it will save you countless broken trays.

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