The Collections, episode 3. In which I spill the tea.

I was about to begin my sophomore year in college when I made my last family visit to Portugal with my parents. It is honestly hard to believe that was July 1985, more than 35 years ago. Despite our European travels over the past decade, I have yet to take Mari to see my parents' homeland. I was just beginning to plan an Iberian adventure for our 20th anniversary in the summer of 2010 when my pai unexpectedly passed away in August of 2009 at the age of 72. I just didn't have the taste for a trip any longer, so those plans and travel lists went into a folder and I haven't looked at it since.

Starting this blog in 2015 was a means for me to sift through photos and collectibles gathered from travels with my wife as well as a way to exercise my writing skills (I'm big on exercising those muscles). While sorting through re-collected stuff these years I have invariably found that (to paraphrase young Prince Hamlet) the memory's the thing. Each of my posted photos and captured collectibles carries with it a cherished memory. Now, I realize I may not need to have 30 teacups or paperweights or typewriter ribbon tins (we'll get to those another 30-day month, I promise) to have a cherished memory, but as you fellow collectors know, sometimes collections run away with themselves. So is the case with this month's bone china remembrances.

Thank you to FaceBook friends for following last month's Teacups of April posts! As was true of my paperweights and shoes, I needn't have worried about fulfilling my contract with you. There were indeed more than a few teacup and saucer sets undocumented as well as teapots, creamers, sugar bowls and other tea accoutrements. So much so that methinks I must spill the tea again in the future. For now, let me begin at the beginning with the first item in my teacup collection which was also the last item presented in my posts.

Buquê de primavera, Vista Alegre, Ílhavo, Portugal

In July of 1985, at my mother's urging, I plunked down 1,000 pre-euro escudos at an outdoor fleamarket in Ílhavo, a few miles from my parents' childhood hometown. About to begin my sophomore year in college, I had no business owning such a beautiful non-utilitarian collection of fragile future heirlooms especially when I knew there were but a meagre 84 square feet awaiting me (and all my stuff) in my fourth-floor single room in Fisher Hall on the Notre Dame campus. Something about the tea set spoke to me in a voice louder than my mae's declaration of how much she liked it and soon it was carefully wrapped and riding astride summer reads in my navy Jansport backpack on the TAP flight back to JFK. If you're wondering where my sensible pai was in all of this, he was helping me negotiate the price down to the easily plunkable six dollars. My father was all about the negotiation when it came to fleamarkets.

The complete set today is pictured above at the top of this post.

I used it once in college a few years after purchase when I was living in my own apartment, but it has mostly sat, very much appreciated until this recent photo shoot. I blame the entire teatime (obsession) collection, if blame must be assigned, on this beautiful and petite assemblage, on my mother's good taste, and on my infatuation with Princess Diana and all things British (including tea).

As all of you know, I love exploring fleamarkets in all their many forms with my wife, Mari, who introduced me to the pleasures of both scouring and hosting garage sales. My collection has been hunted and gathered and re-collected from fleamarket travels in the US and Europe since that first capture in 1985. Without the ability to travel for the past year, I had to go viral to answer the collector's call.

These two green-hued beauties are recent online (Covid quarantine) purchases. While I much prefer discovering and unearthing these resplendent relics in person, I was thrilled to find an impeccable and professional online site with equally professional and impeccable packaging (and free shipping).

theteacupattic.com

Green Pansy, Taylor & Kent, Longton, England

Peony, Victoria C&E, England

The Wedgwood Paeonia Blush below was one of the few items in my collection purchased new. The pattern was featured on a recent cover of TeaTime and I left the magazine lying around the house long enough that Mari got the hint for my birthday in 2019.

Okay, two more new items. Also quarantine purchases. Blue was my treat while pink was Mari’s half of a new duo for this year’s Valentine’s tea. Royal Albert calls both patterns Vintage Mix because the pink teacup was packaged with my blue saucer and the blue with Mari's pink.

As a delicately balanced vintage mix ourselves, we figured they belonged together, too. They also each came packaged with a colorfully mismatched dessert plate which we put to good use as you can see below. One of the dessert plates matched the Rose Confetti teapot already living among our collections.

You may have noticed throughout the month quite a few hues of blue, just as there were among my many shoes.

Blue Forget-me-not, Crown Staffordshire, England

Memory Lane, Royal Albert, England

Fleamarkets near and far have supported my fix for blue over these many years. 

Dainty Blue, Royal Albert, England

Snow White, James Chatelaine China, Bavaria, Germany

Dainty Blue was one of three additions to my collection during a summer trip to Maine in 2018 while Snow White was a lucky find at the Saturday morning Flohmarkt during a Christmas market visit to Vienna in 2014.

Here I am on that drizzly Viennese November morning.

I don't remember if this was before or after my encounter with Snow White, but this is the kind of booth I love to discover and explore.

Spring Bouquet, Edelstein, Bavaria, Germany

Cabbage Rose, Weimar, Germany

Both German dessert sets above were fleamarketed across the miles and across the years. Spring Bouquet was a special find from an antique shop in Warnemünde, Germany and (a little closer to home) Cabbage Rose was found at Picker's Paradise antique mall in Niles, Michigan.

Yellow Roses, Paragon China, Longton, England

Pattern 8541, Queen Anne, Ridgway Potteries, England

Back in Texas where they belong, Yellow Roses were picked at a garage sale just a few miles outside the Rose Bowl flea back in 2017 while we were celebrating Mari's 50th birthday. As if we hadn't had enough of a fleamarketing adventure already on that beautiful Saturday morning, homemade garage sale and estate sale signs called to us as we left the stadium, if you recall. Three thousand miles away, the red and pink roses of Pattern 8541 announced themselves rather boldly from beneath dusty years of neglect in a box of household treasures at the Hell's Kitchen Flea in New York City. Each bone china set was rescued for all of five dollars.

Floral Vines, Limoges, France

Spring Vines, Charles Haviland, Limoges, France

If it's Sunday and we are in New York City, Mari and I will be at the Upper West Side fleamarket now known as Grand Bazaar NYC (formerly The Green Flea).

https://grandbazaarnyc.org

These two previously blogged purchases were acquired from the same vendor inside the Manhattan school cafeteria years apart.

The only official "antiques" in my collection, these two French siblings are kept in a special location among my books behind glass doors with a few other collectibles.

Here is a quick peek inside a section of my home library slash collectibles stash.

As you can see, les deux compatriotes are back to bolstering Tolkien and Updike novels after their April photoshoots.

Now for more fabulously festive five-dollar fleamarketed finds! 

Golden Chrysanthemum, Royal Minster, England

Royal Rose, Roslyn China, England

This time, we are at Hobby Horse Antiques Marketplace in Searsport, Maine. About halfway between Portland and Bar Harbor, the indoor/outdoor fleamarketplace (I'm coining it, so get used to it) yielded quite a few wicked good finds during our July 2018 Maine adventures.

Mayfair Brown (H4905), Royal Doulton, England

Some of you may remember this unexpected stop-the-presses treasure as part of a heavily discounted discovery of dishes at The Green Door Thrift Shop in San Antonio in 2018.

Blossom Time, Royal Albert, England

Another San Antonio find, this one long ago at a Goodwill far far away.

Actually, San Antonio is not that far for us and the Goodwill (and boutique) near North Star Mall (and The Container Store!) is permanently etched on our travel list when we are in San Antonio.

It was at least ten years ago when I spotted two fairly complete place settings of this bright and bold springtime pattern in the boutique section of the flagship Goodwill store. There were even rimmed soup bowls which excited me to no end, but no teacups. Nary a solitary teacup-less saucer in sight.

Mari and I had enjoyed this vivid but lamentably incomplete set for at least a decade when I came across two perfectly pristine teacups and saucers (conveniently just before Christmas 2020) on The Teacup Attic website.

So, to make a long story even better, here they all are!

We set our Easter table in the kitchen this year with the now full set.

Flowering Vine, Haviland & Co., Limoges, France

Mint Spring Bouquet, Foley, England

As I was organizing photo shoots for my April collection, I realized that so many of the teacups featured a surprise inside like these two green-hued treasures. At top is a most delicate and treasured favorite, picked from Les Puces de Saint Ouen near Paris. It had been Mari's dream to return to Paris for the weekend fleamarket and who am I not to answer that call with a surprise trip for Valentine's Day in 2014 (if you recall, it was the 25th anniversary of my proposal so it wasn't just any old Valentine's Day). Discovered much closer to home (only a few miles away at a local antiques shop) the Foley teacup features an unusual surprise in addition to the usual. I love that a tincture of pale minty green accompanies the floral bouquet inside the teacup.

Without (too much) further fanfare, let me present the remaining items photographed for my April posts.

Wild Roses saucer with Orchid teacup, Regency Bone China, Staffordshire, England

Dainty Pink, Shelley, England

the mysterious "Pattern 6072" and the more obvious Victorian Violets

both Hammersley & Co, England

Pansies, Periwinkles, Poinsettia, Old Country Roses

Royal Albert, England

I noticed a lot of Royal Albert in my collection, including these final four featured keepsakes, and that is probably because its parent company of Royal Doulton is one of the oldest and most popular manufacturers of bone china in the world. The Old Country Roses pattern was created nearly sixty years ago and Royal Doulton declares it to be the world's best-selling china pattern. All I know is that Mari and I fell in love with it (after falling for each other) over thirty years ago and we splurged during our first married Christmas to buy two place settings. Over the years, two more settings and a small tea service have joined the party, but those first two will always have a special place in our history and in our hearts.

As the teacup collection has grown over the years, it has been gathered and recollected in different locations throughout our home. As you just saw, there are some special teacups among my books. There are a "few" others stored away with their matching sets of dishes (no need to bring those up in case Mari is reading), and, of course, still others that are put to regular use and stored conveniently at hand in the kitchen.

I leave you, dear reader, with a casual glimpse of the otherwise "complete" collection above, along with a few other tea accoutrements (love when I can justly use that luxurious morsel of language and get away with it) which may make a "Thirty Day" appearance of their own some day.

Thank you all ever so much for joining me in my fun fleamarket adventures!