Me old china!

I love old china, but in our little house with its tiny kitchen - so small that we couldn't have proper, deep, 'bottom' cupboards on both sides and had to have shallower 'top' cupboards at floor level on one side of the room - we've had to be practical about pottery. No collecting lovely vintage china for me, even though I do hanker after it whenever I see an expecially nice piece in a charity shop.



However, since Mr Robot and I started our food blog, Greedybots, we've had more of a need for pottery. Not every foodstuff suits every plate, and if we're going to take lots of nice photos, we're going to need lots of nice plates. Suddenly odd bits of vintage china aren't a pointless indulgence, they're jolly useful photo props and so we can justify them. (Finding room for them is still tricky, mind you, and I still can't justify a tea set.)

We don't use things for their original purposes. The green sandwich plate has already been used for a dish of Ants Climbing Trees from MiMi Aye's book Noodle! (we went to the launch; you can see Pete's photo of Ants Climbing Trees as part of his writeup of the Noodle! book launch here).

I don't know what purpose the soup bowls will serve. I took a quick hunt around the web to get a date for them; they're Crown Ducal in the 'Bristol' pattern, which was made from the 1920s to the 1960s, but the back stamp makes it likely they're 30s, 40s or possibly early 50s. Judging from the filth I had to scrub off them, they've been sat on a shelf since 1933... A couple are chipped too, but the set was still worth the fiver we paid for them.

I just thought you'd like to see the dishes. Would you like me to share more in future?

Comments

  1. You can't beat a bit of lovely old china. :-)

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    1. I tell you, if I won the lottery and got a bigger house, I'd probably have a room full of part-sets that I'd collect and start reassembling into full sets. And another for perfume ;-)

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  2. Yes please, I love china! I didn't know about your other blog, will have to peek x

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    1. Greedybots is pure food, and the husband and I share it. We've just done so much good cooking of late, and he's taken some smashing photos, that I wanted to share the pictures.

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  3. Oh yes, I love china and I have very little restraint in that area. I kind of know that our house is overflowing and that I do have a lot of tea sets but I can't let a lovely plate or tea cup pass me by. I have become very, very good at stacking!

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    1. We really have no room. What with books, photography equipment and my yarn stash (which I'm trying to reduce because I *really* want a sewing machine but have to make space for it first), too much china as well would leave us unable to move. :-(

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  4. I can appreciate some china, usually art deco sets, but my heart lies more with glass tea and coffee sets I must admit x

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  5. Ooooh, yum, I adore old china! I have more room, but I lack surfaces to put it on. What I have is filled. I now ration myself to only what really, really, grabs me.
    I have a mostly complete set of Paragon Garden Gate in the green colourway from the Deco period. And my Granny's pretty violets set from the 60s.
    The rest is mish mash, and I use old dishes all the time, not just for display.
    And I have a real weakness for Art Deco glass, but quite pricey, now. But I have two of the "frog" ladies and their bowls.

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    1. Oooh, I've just looked up Garden Gate - that's such a nice pattern. It must be great to have your granny's set, too.

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