A Paragon of Teatime Fancy

Assorted Paragon Teacups

I drink a lot of tea, tons of the stuff, decaf or I'd die amounts of it, and when I'm sitting down to a cup properly, I like to drink it in style! Starting with an ironic teacup buy back in high school (Old Country Roses from my days working in a fancy glass and china department) it's built into something a bit more opulent and a straight up obsession.

I've had to slow down acquisitions due to lack of space and fear the collection might get (ok has got) out of hand. I still have a "to get" list though for cups that fill a particular hole in my collection, and cups that are just plain "like woah!". One cup recently ticked from that list was "vintage Paragon teacup".

I love Paragon cups for a few reasons. First, there are so many unique designs, second  vintage flavor, and third and most importantly a lot of their cups were crazy over the top! Gold, gold, cool colors, flowers, more gold, and a lot of the time inside the cup designs. Which is a great opportunity for more gold more flowers and they look smashing shining up through a non milky tea, with of the band of the saucer showing around it like pool of amber awesome (Can you tell I love these things? You should probably just go and add "a vintage paragon teacup" to your list of stuff you need to have too).

So yeah, paragon cup was on my list, and yeah, I'd been hunting, but like I say limited teacup real estate remaining, and so many designs, it was hard to chose just one! Till I ran across this cheeky little thing....

It had all the design elements I wanted from my Paragon cup, bold use of gold, hand painted flowers, in cup designs, cobalt blue (another thing on my "to get" list)  and to top it off it was being sold as a trio! (I found more cool cup and saucer combos than trios, and the fact they didn't often name their patterns makes tracking down a matching side plate tricky) I was already sold on it when I read on to find this pattern is actually a re-production of a design they made for Queen Mary back in 1913. ROYAL TEACUP!  (Royal teacups are a special love of mine and covered by the "like woah!" clause)

According to the Paragon International Collectors Club the Queen Mary Pattern (# 8902) was first designed for a service presented to Queen Mary on a visit to the Paragon (then Star) factory in 1913.  The pattern was then re-issued in the late 20's to the public, with is where mine comes from (the stamp on my set date it to between 1930-1933) 
Turns out I got a pretty good deal on my little set, and that this is one of the few paragon patterns out there that came in a ton of different pieces and is relativly easy to hunt for (Paragon replica queen mary X). For me I don't need extra pieces, just the trio, but for anyone looking to collect a matching set (and who has deep pockets) it's perfectly possible with a little patience to collect a full vintage tea, or even table service fit for a queen!

You might also be used to seeing cups like these pop up on Pinterest, Tumblr etc all the time, now you know they're Paragon china (seems to be nearly always Paragon or Royal Albert in those things). If you're a vintage lover, tea lover, or just plain fan of fancy things I heartily recommend adding one to your wish list, you just have to find the cup that suits you best!