Fairylite Foreign Cup of Knowledge Green Plain
From Mystic Tea Room
Fairylite was a Japanese maker of porcelain for export to Great Britain, and the pieces were marked "foreign," to signify non-English origin. The Cup 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:
- Pieces are backstamped "Fairylite Foreign" rather than "Aynsley".
- The colour of the Fairylite clay body is slightly greyish, typical of Japanese ware, but unlike British bone china, which is a bright white.
- The quality of the transfers of the Fairylite playing cards is muddier than the English originals, with a yellowish tinge inside the cards.
- 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.
- The Fairylite 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.
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