1960s DANSK Salt and Pepper Mills Designed by Jens Quistgaard Danish Design Vintage Dansk Peppermill

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Vintage combination salt and pepper mills crafted of solid teak and designed by Jens Quistgaard for Dansk in the 1960s. All pieces are in very good vintage condition with minimal signs of age or wear.

Details below provided by 'The Peppermills of Jens Quistgaard' - https://www.quistgaardpepper.com/

1. #895 UFO: 7" tall x 4" wide
The UFO is one of the most iconic and ubiquitous JHQ designs. Its long production life - from the earliest all-metal, banded grinders, through every generation of grinder that can be identified, all the way to more modern metal-and-plastic grinders produced in Thailand - is a testament to its status as a signature Quistgaard peppermill. The UFO shape consists of a wide base that tapers to a thin neck via an S-curve. A sharp line divides the neck from the disk-like top. The mill’s grinder rotation point is always at the connection between the neck and the top and is mostly hidden from view. The mill has seven holes for dispersing salt.

2. #892 Mushroom Tall Ribbed: - 7.5" tall x 2.75" wide
This mill’s profile rises as a slightly tapered, straight-sided conical shaft. Three sets of double beads adorn its shaft, all equal in profile and spacing. Each bead (or lip, or donut) follows a roughly circular profile, although, given their small size, we are hard-pressed to assert if each bead is a circle or an ellipse. Above the shaft lies a droopy, ellipsoid cap. In older variants, this mill has twelve holes for dispersing salt. To load salt, the mill’s large, pancake-like cap needs to be removed. Pepper is loaded via the mill’s underside. The line between the cap and shaft hides the grinder rotation point.

3. #857 - Eyelet - 7" tall x 3.5" wide - Slight wear on upper side (see photos)
The base of the mill contains compartments for salt and pepper, loaded via two sets of removable wooden pegs. There are sixteen salt holes at the top of the base, which is both more than the usual six to eight holes in most designs and an odd point from which to disperse salt. Typical salt shakers have salt holes at the very top of the object, but in this case, the entire loop shape will be between the food and the salt holes when you invert this “table seasoner.”

The rotation point is well masked at the joint between the top loop shape and the base of this mill. The cut-line in the middle of the base is cosmetic but helps signify that both salt and pepper live in the base of this design.

4. #835 Acorn: 5" tall x 3" wide
The Acorn appears to be a mainstay of this series of peppermills. This design was produced for an extended period of time, from the early all-wood grinder era, through the transitional grinder period, to plastic grinders made in Denmark and then Thailand.

5. #834 Flathead: - 5.5" tall x 2.75" wide
The Flathead design gets its name from its similarity to a flathead screwdriver. A tapered cylinder is carved away to create a flat blade at the top of this mill. The shapes of The Flathead are less expressive than most JHQ peppermills, featuring an almost austere, rectilinear overall profile. This mill is a part of the Screwdriver family of shapes.

Salt is loaded via two side plugs and pepper is loaded via the base of the mill, using the generational varieties of pepper-loading mechanisms. The top surface of the flathead blade has three salt holes. The grinder rotation point is between the two small donut shapes in the middle of the mill.

6. #824 Double-Barrel 4" tall x 5" wide - slight visible wear (see photos)
Two distinctly barrel-like blocks stack atop one another. Both barrels sit above cylindrical pedestals and the grinder rotation point is just above the bottom barrel. All four pegs are removable. The top two are for loading salt, the bottom two for loading pepper. There are six salt holes on the top surface of the mill.

7. #825A - Vanguard : 8.25" tall x 2.5" wide - Has some minor wear on the removeable plugs
Its profile has an evenly convex curve for the entire height of the mill. This mill’s waist steps inwards just about one-third of the mill’s height from its base, with the grinder rotation point at the bottom of the waist. The rotation point is well masked due to the design’s top section fully slotting into the bottom. The top surface of the mill has nine salt holes total: eight in a ring around one in the center, all the same size.

8. #1616 Mushroom Short:
The Short Mushroom is a compressed variant of the mushroom shapes - much wider and more stout than its taller mushroom cousins. Despite this mill’s appearance of sitting on a completely cylindrical hockey puck of a base, the lowest portion of this mill is also a slightly tapered cone. As we go up the mill, its profile steps inward via a hairline jog, then draws a large fillet shape to the mill’s truly cylindrical neck. Its grinder rotation point is situated just beneath the mushroom cap top, obscuring it from view. Like all mushroom mills, salt is loaded at the top via a single round peg. Unlike the narrow round pegs found on most JHQ mills, the Short Mushroom’s peg features a flattened disc. This mill has eight salt holes, two more than its cousins.

9. #832 - Chess Queen: 9.5" tall x 2.75" wide -
Despite its elegant shape, the Chess Queen is an imposing peppermill. This design is one of the taller JHQ mills. Combined with a fairly large diameter, the size of this mill is particularly expressed when the item is held. Most of the JQH mills of this height have sections that are quite a bit thinner - this mill is wide throughout. Never underestimate a queen’s power.

10. #891 - Chess King: 8.5" tall x 2.5" wide:
The profile of this mill begins at a round base, rising as a slightly tapered cone. The mill has a shallow waist (technically a sunken fillet), which allows for the profiles above and below this element to be imperceptibly out of plane with one another. The mill’s neck is a complex surface, with four flat sides carved into a curved, turned profile. Above the neck, a cross-shaped head rises as an extrusion with chamfered edges. The mill is topped by a moderately wide salt plug with a tiny mushroom cap. Around the salt plug, eight holes dispense salt, two per side of the cross shape. Pepper is loaded via the underside of the mill.

Jens Harald Quistgaard (April 23, 1919 - January 4, 2008) was the principal designer for Dansk Designs from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. Quistgaard’s designs are largely responsible for introducing and defining the Scandinavian modern aesthetic for American homes. As the New York Times recognized in 1958, “Some of the most popular accessories found in American homes today have their beginnings in a small studio-workshop adjoining the modest residence of Jens Quistgaard in Copenhagen.” Quistgaard, by way of Dansk Designs, went on to transform and modernize the American dining table and kitchen.