Crimson Reflections

I have written half-a-blog post about my china / tea cup collection or new additions to it at least 3 times, but I don’t think I’ve actually published any of them, which is wild to me. I collect tea cups, and use (some of) them for tea parties at my home occasionally. Primarily, my interests are 1920s-ish Noritake and then lusterware primarily from Royal Sealy and Royal Halsey, though I have some other pieces from other brands. Lusterware, for those not familiar, is china that has a iridescent finish which comes from a metallic glaze. I believe the majority of the lusterware I have is from roughly the 1950s/1960s, though it’s hard to find information about a lot of it. I have a book titled “Collectible Cups & Saucers – Identification and Values: Book III” by Jim & Susan Harran copyright 2004, and a few of my pieces are in the Japanese Tableware section of the book with 1950s dates.

Today it was 103F out (that’s 39C for those of you outside the US), and my car is 15 years old (because I don’t like change), and so when it reaches certain temperatures inside the engine compartment my car decides that I do not get A/C. I had to go over to the local Animal Control office to re-up my cats’ registration after they got their rabies shots the other day, so I went over there today and found out that they don’t register cats anymore, they abolished it a few months after I renewed last time, so I didn’t actually need to drive over there. Though the very nice lady did record their up to date immunization, so that if anything ever goes horribly wrong and they get lost and found, they won’t have to be isolated like non immunized cats would be. So I put the money I would have paid to register my cats into the rescue fund donation box and went back out to my car. In the 103F heat. In the full sun outside the building. I started up my car and it was like “no, A/C does not exist here”. So I decided in that moment that we were going to the goodwill down the street and then the grocery store and we were going to pray that the A/C was willing to work again after that (thankfully after parking under a tree at the grocery store, the A/C decided it could work again).

I generally prefer a different thrift shop closer to my house that is a medical charity one and specifically stocks grandma-type-stuff because they get nice teacups all the time and have a better reputation, but the goodwill by the animal shelter had A/C and was there. Also, this goodwill and the one near my house almost never have good teacups, but again, A/C. Surprisingly, they had some cassette tapes (usually they don’t), though it was 90% classical and Christmas. I’ve been listening to 1950s rock and 1980s-1990s pop at work lately on my remake walkman, so I did pick up a couple tapes. I got Barbara Streisand’s “One Voice” from 1987, Lionel Richie’s “Can’t Slow Down” from 1983, “Class of ’62 The Golden Days of Rock and Roll V1” which promises to be 75 favorites from 1958-1862 (the tape is from 1984), but alas, they only had volume 1, so we only get 19 songs. I also got “Trio” which promises to be Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris, solely for Dolly. Lastly, I didn’t know who Mary Chapin Carpenter was, but I got her “Shooting Straight in the Dark” from 1990 solely based on the song titles because one was called “when she’s gone” and women singing songs about women makes my gay little heart happy, even when they aren’t lesbians. Oh, and I guess actually lastly I grabbed a tape published by the Chrysler Corporation called “Rediscover America 1942-1992” which promises 1970s-era recordings of American Patriotic songs. It’s July 4th weekend and I’m going to a family BBQ tomorrow and I have my tape player at home to clean it, so that’s going to be our test tape.

Anyways, I went over to the dishes section with low expectations and I audibly gasped because there were maybe two-dozen-ish teacups on a bottom shelf, and a bunch of them were lusterware. But it was just the cups. So, I immediately went to get a shopping cart and grabbed the cups that I liked. I didn’t take a photo, but there were some really weird ones, like a cup with Physalis alkekengi (Chinese Lanterns) on it, a very chunky one with chunky wheat painted on it, as well as some just normal tea cups with flowers that weren’t lusterware and one that said mother on it quite prominently… Then I went on a hunt and I found a few stacks of saucers in with the plates on a high shelf.

But I didn’t know what I had and the cart was too small, so I guiltily took over the ugliest little desk-table that I was pretty sure no one currently in the store was going to buy to sort through it all. I will admit I almost laughed out loud when a guy saw what I was doing, then looked at the cups I wasn’t picking like “is this worth money?”. Thankfully, I did not accidentally trick him into buying the others with my excitement.

While trying to match saucers to cups, I realized I needed to go get all the ugly cups so I could eliminate their saucers, so I went and got them and then proceeded to put them and their saucers back as I eliminated them.

Eventually though, I ended up with 17 sets, and then 1 loose cup and 2 loose saucers that I decided to keep anyways. I ended up getting a couple non-lusterware pieces that I just really liked, as well as a majority of the lusterware pieces. The goodwill priced each cup and saucer separately as $1.19 mugs and $1.29 plates, so each set cost me $2.48, which is way less than any of these would have cost at the other thrift store.

Everything I picked came home safely (which was a circus because they didn’t have any boxes, though they thankfully had paper), stickers got removed and everything got washed…

And this is what we ended up with…

First up is a set of cups that feature the “birth flower” for various months. I actually already have the March one of these (Daffodill), but I really like it, and my existing one has a serious crack in the saucer. These are unmarked, and ironically the April (Sweet Pea) is in the book I mentioned above, and they do identify it as 1950s and of Japanese origin, but they don’t identify any maker.

The other cups are September (Aster), June (Rose), July (Water Lilly) and May (Lily of the Valley). Looking online some of these come up as having stickers for Ucago, though some of the cups labeled online as Ucago use different flowers for some months. I’m not sure if they changed the flowers (specifically the rose and aster) to different transfers (because these would have been transfers, not hand-painted) or what. My very-dated book suggests each of these is worth $30-$35, though I have never seen them priced that high in a thrift store. Interestingly, my March cup is marked on the bottom of the cup as being March Daffodil, but not on the saucer, while these are marked on the saucer, but not the cups.

Next, this is my favorite cup of the lot. It’s marked Grantcrest China Japan on the bottom. Based on the style and other pieces that are similar I see online, I suspect this is from roughly the 1950s.

I really like this shade of lavender in lusterware, as well as the forget-me-not motif on this. I don’t love the gold circles where it looks like they just took a really big round paint brush and went “boop” on the saucer, but it is what it is.

This is my second-favorite set. This saucer with the flowers is marked Royal Halsey – Very Fine and I believe the cup in question goes with it because the scale seems correct. But there is also a second smaller pierced saucer marked with two crossed arrows that has fruit on it which also matches in color and has no specific cup.

There are also pictures / sales listings of this cup with a different saucer, and this saucer with a different cup, but they are both listings for Royal Halsey. So I don’t know if this was sold to the person who donated it as a miss-matched set by Royal Halsey, or if they had both and broke a cup and a saucer, or if someone beat me to these cups and saucers and matched the wrong ones, or if someone kept the other cup and saucer as a miss-matched set before donating the rest… All I know is that they look fine together so I’m keeping them that way. The saucer with the roses is circa the 1960s according to the Etsy seller and the cup is circa the 1950s according to the other Etsy seller. So, about the time frame we expect. On Etsy they are $26 and $52, so I think even if I have a miss-matched set, for $2.48, I really can’t complain.

Next up is a cup and saucer set which I think might feature violets? It’s a little hard to say for sure because some of them are yellow.

Unlike a lot of the other cups from today, this one has a very pale milky blue as well as white on different parts of the background. Most of the others are either white or a bold color.

This is completly unmarked, though there is someone on ebay selling one as being from Relco.

This has another one of the “abstract” gold treatments. The artist dabbed the brush around the edge to make a sort of blobby dot pattern. I prefer this to the “spray brush in 1990s paint” look from the lavender forget-me-nots cup, but it’s also not my favorite treatment.

This one is also unmarked, and has a very similar thickness and saucer foot style to the one above. It’s also listed as being from Relco as well according to this ebay listing.

Initially, I thought this was one of the birth month flower cups because of how similar it is in shape to them, but it is not.

The saucer is pierced, which is something I love, but it’s a chunky one, it’s not nearly as delicate as the Royal Sealy ones usually are. This cup and saucer also have some of the same milky-backround paint as the one above, except in pale orange this time.

The thorns on the saucer are particularly interesting and unique.

Next up (image to the left) is a cup with three cute little feet, and this one actually has a Relco sticker on the bottom of the cup still.

In my limited experience with finding groups of cups like this for sale, they usually come from a single person’s estate and it’s not uncommon for a person to have multiple pieces from the same brand, so this gives more credence to some of the others being Relco as well.

A similar one on Etsy is listed as being from the 1950s.

I have a few similar cups, including a lefton one with circles for feat and similar rose transfers, which I’ve included a photo of above on the right, but I just really like these little 3-footed cups, you don’t see a lot of cups like that today.

This cup and saucer is similar to the one above, except it’s miniature sized. The saucer for this one also has a triangular indent for the 3 feet instead of the typical round indent.

It’s complely unmarked and I can’t find anything quite like it online. I don’t love how heavy they went with the gold speckles, it has a sort of salt and pepper look to it when the lights are anything other than high, but the roses are pretty and I really love the feet and the little triangle inset.

This is another miniature cup and saucer. I really like the bright, happy yellow. It just says “Made in Japan” on the bottom in green. I have a small collection of miniature cups, and I’m happy to add this one to it.

This cup is also a miniature cup and it didn’t have a matching saucer that I could find. It has a mark of ‘4ZD413’ on the bottom of the cup, which this Napco yellow cup and saucer set on ebay also has apparently. Worthpoint has a much more similar one in magenta which is also attributed to Napco with the same number mark.

Based on that, I’m tenatively thinking it’s also from Napco, though it’s not 100% clear if Napco made or just imported the other two. Regardless, it’s likely vintage Japanese work.

Initially, I tried to match that cup with this saucer, but the lavender-blue tones aren’t quite the same, and it’s marked Bavaria on the bottom while the cup seems more Japanese. Bareuther Waldsassen is the maker of this saucer and with the 100 aniversary maker’s mark, it’s likely circa 1966. I probably will pair the lonely cup with it for now as it’s a closer match than the pale teal one above, and my other un-paired miniature saucers in my collection are very French-looking limoge pieces which won’t match at all.

Which takes us to the non-lusterware pieces I picked up.

First, we have an English cup and saucer set marked Victoria C&E Bone China on the bottom.

This is apparently from Cartwright & Edwards in Longton, England. The victoria works was active from 1912 – 1955, and my maker’s mark is from post 1935.

I picked this particular cup and saucer up even though it’s not what I typically collect because I just really loved the scallop design on it, and the roses were quite lovely.

I have some pieces of English china in my collection and they tend to be the pieces that are more “pieces to use”, versus some of the more delicate / questionably painted ones that are display only.

This is another non-lusterware cup and saucer I picked up. It’s marked “Bone China – Made in England” with a little crown, but no specific company. Given the age of the other pieces and the age of other maker’s cups that use the same transfers, it’s likely from the 1950s-1960s.

I realize I’m a little too late here for pride month, but there is a history of associating violets with sapphic love, and between that and just a general fondness for violets and panseys, I tend to pick up violet-themed cups when I find them if they are in good condition.

I also am a sucker for forget-me-nots. There is just something terribly romantic and melancholy about them, and they are often depicted in my favorite shade of blue. Surprisingly though, I think I’ve only found one forget-me-not cup over the years other than the grantcrest one I showed above.

I put this cup back. And then I went and got it again.

And then I almost put it back again. The outside of the cup is all white, you can’t see the print unless you are looking down into it, which is not great for how I display my cups and it’s not great for using it either.

However, there is a little part of me that would love nothing more in the world than to be a little Chipmunk having tea in the autumn in a warm little cottage in the 1970s with shag carpet in earthy-colors.

This is that little chipmunk’s tea cup. And it made my heart happy to buy it, so I did.

It’s technically now the 4th when I’m publishing this and I might swing by my normal thrift store if they are open on the way to my family cookout.

Do you collect anything? Have any favorite tea cups? Let me know in the comments!