Starbucks Iowa mug: Discovery Series
The Iowa mug from Starbucks' Discovery Series sets IOWA in light blue over a dark green circle, with a goldfinch (the state bird), Snake Alley's brick switchbacks, a red covered bridge like Roseman, a green tractor, flowers, a cyclist and an ice-cream cone.
- Series
- Discovery Series
- Place
- Iowa, USA
- Type
- Mug
- Released
- Not confirmed
- Capacity
- 14 fl ozStarbucks's Discovery Series launch story calls it the 14-ounce ceramic mug
- SKU
- Not confirmed
Sponsored links: we earn a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
The tractor that threshed for 52 days, then came back
In the fall of 1892, John Froelich, who ran a grain elevator in Froelich, Iowa, took a crew of 16 men and a dining and sleeping car to South Dakota for a threshing run [1]. His steam equipment threatened fire at every turn and kept breaking down, and he had built something to replace it [1]. It was a gasoline machine, and the first of its kind that could move both forward and in reverse [2]. It worked for 52 days. According to Farm Collector, he made a small fortune threshing 62,000 bushels of grain [1]. Then came the customers. The handful who bought tractors from his new company were generally dissatisfied [2]. Of four experimental engines built in 1893, two were sold and both were returned [1]. The directors turned to stationary engines. In 1918 Deere and Company bought the firm for $2,350,000 [2]. The green tractor on the Iowa mug (3) may be a distant relative of Froelich's machine.
The mug does not label its drawings, so connecting this one to the story is our reading.
What's on the mug
- 1IOWA lettering
IOWA is printed in light blue capitals across a dark green circle that sits behind most of the drawings.
- 2Eastern goldfinch
A small bright yellow bird with a short pale cone-shaped bill perches on the tractor's steering wheel, left of the lettering. Its cap, wing and tail are orange with pale streaks. The shape and placement match the eastern goldfinch, Iowa's state bird; the real male has a black cap, black wings and a black tail, and the mug puts orange in exactly those places. The mug doesn't name it.[4]
- 3Green farm tractor
A green tractor with yellow trim lines and a tall exhaust stack faces right below the lettering. It has a large orange rear wheel and a smaller orange front wheel, both with yellow hubs, with a dark green wheel showing behind the front one. At the front of the hood, in front of the grille, sits a small white cup marked with a green circle, which looks like a Starbucks cup. The tractor reads as a nod to Iowa farming and may echo the state's tractor history, which goes back to John Froelich's gasoline tractor of 1892. No make or model can be read from the drawing.[1][2]
- 4Yellow and white blossoms
Three large open blossoms, two yellow and one white edged in yellow, sit with green leaves at the lower right of the circle; the lower yellow one has a cluster of orange-red stamens, the upper yellow one a pale cream centre and the white one yellow stamens. Iowa's state flower is the wild rose, which is pink, so these are not a clear match and the species is not identified.[4]
- 5Cyclist, possibly a nod to RAGBRAI
A rider in a striped helmet, an orange top and blue shorts, with yellow arms and legs, rides a road bicycle with blue-and-yellow segmented wheels beside the handle, at the foot of the zigzag street. It may refer to RAGBRAI, the bicycle ride across Iowa held since 1973, or to the Snake Alley Criterium, an uphill race on the street drawn just above it. The mug doesn't say which, if either.[3][6]
- 6Red covered bridge, like Roseman Covered Bridge
A long red-orange covered span with vertical boards and a single flat roof plane runs across the top left; its end has a rounded light-coloured portal, and a deck with a yellow railing continues to the right on thin posts. It looks like one of Madison County's covered bridges, closest to Roseman Covered Bridge, which is clad in red boards with white trim and rests on pilings at each end. Several of the county's bridges share these features, so the exact bridge is not certain, and the mug doesn't name it.[5]
- 7Snake Alley, Burlington
An orange-red street patterned with short yellow dashes, like laid bricks, zigzags down a hillside through four tight bends, past green trees, a yellow tree and a blue scalloped bush. This matches Snake Alley in Burlington, a winding brick street built on a steep hill and paved with limestone and clay bricks. The mug doesn't name it.[3]
- 8Stacked ice-cream cone
A tall stack at the left edge rises from a blue cone with a waffle pattern through green, orange and dotted cream layers to a yellow-orange top, like several scoops of ice cream. It may be a nod to Le Mars, Iowa, which took the title Ice Cream Capital of the World in 1994. A faint item further left is cut off by the photo's edge and is not identified.[7]
The photo shows one side of the mug. The back and the area behind the handle are out of view.
Collector notes
- The tractor, the flowers and the cyclist all sit on the lower half of the circle, so the lettering is the quickest way to confirm the state.
- The cyclist and the zigzag street sit beside the handle, so a photo taken from the left side of the mug will miss them.
Before you buy
The photo shows one side of the mug, so the back and the area behind the handle are not visible. Iowa also appears in the Been There series, so check the lettering and the drawings before you buy. This mug is listed at 14 fl oz.
Other Iowa mugs
More Discovery Series mugs from Iowa
About the Discovery Series
Sources
- Froelich launched new era on the farm (Farm Collector)
- John Froelich entry (University of Iowa Press, Biographical Dictionary of Iowa)
- Snake Alley (Burlington, Iowa) (Wikipedia)
- About Iowa: state symbols (Travel Iowa)
- Roseman Covered Bridge (Madison County Tourism)
- About RAGBRAI (RAGBRAI)
- Ice Cream Capital of the World (Wells Enterprises)
