Fairylite Foreign Cup of Knowledge Green Plain

From Mystic Tea Room

Interior of the Fairylite Foreign teacup

Fairylite Foreign saucer

This fairylite Foreign saucer bottom is unmarked; it may have had a foil tag that was lost

Original boxed set of Fairylite Foreign cup, saucer, and instruction sheet for tea leaf reading

Fairylite was a Japanese maker of porcelain for export to Great Britain, and the pieces were marked "foreign," to signify non-English origin. The up of Knowledge made by Fairylight was an illegal knock-off or patent infringement of the original pattern from England. Specifically, this cup is a close copy of the Aynsley Cup of Knowledge Green Plain.

Here's how to tell them apart:

• The quality of the transfers of the playing cards is muddier than the English originals.

• The colour of the clay body is slightly greyish, typical of Japanese ware, but unlike British bone china, which is a bright white.

• Despite the attempt to closely copy a British tea cup shape, the foot of the Fairylite cup is amusingly Japanese, in a six-petal scallop shape.

• Some pieces will still bear their original metallic foil paper "Foreign" tags, but most of them have been lost over the years when the cups were washed, leaving them with no backstamp at all.

• The Fairylite Foreign Plain Green Cup of Knowledge has a mustard-yellow pin-line around the center of the saucer. If it were an Aynsley cup, that pin-line would be gold.