The Museum of Fortune Telling Tea Cups and Saucers
From Mystic Tea Room
Welcome to the Museum of Fortune Telling Tea Cups and Saucers!
This online museum is an extension of a real, physical museum that houses hundreds of fortune telling cups from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. More than just a colourful gallery of detailed images of dozens of fortune teller's tea cups and saucers, this museum also houses factual information about tea leaf reading cups, including patent drawings for a divination cups, instructional pamphlets that accompanied divination cup and saucer sets, books about tasseomancy, and historical overviews of the designers and manufacturers of tea leaf readers' cups.
Please begin your visit to my tea cup museum visit with this disclaimer: The divination cups and saucers you will see here may -- or may not -- be for sale at this or any other time, so please do not contact me with inquiries about buying or selling fortune teller's tea cups. As a museum, this a place in which to enjoy some beautiful things and learn about their history. It is a virtual tour of my own personal collection, accumulated over the course of 55 years ... and still on-growing.
catherine yronwode
The Mystic Tea Room
1) Museum PAGE NOT CAT
- Makers Markers PAGE NOT CAT (lists cats)
- Tea cup names PAGE NOT CAT (lists pages and cats)
- Types of Divination PAGE NOT CAT (lists cats)
- Nations of Origin PAGE NOT CAT (lists cats)
- Commemoratives PAGE NOT CAT (lists cats)
- Design Patents PAGE NOT CAT(lists pages)
(these appear on the directory and they also appear as a list of See Alsos on every one of their companion-pages)
2) Instructions PAGE NOT CAT
- How to PAGE NOT CAT
- List of Symbols
(these appear on the directory and they also appear as a list of See Alsos on every one of their companion-pages)
3) Art
- Postcards and trade cards
- Paintings
(these appear on the directory and they also appear as a list of See Alsos on every one of their companion-pages)
4) Bibliography
5) Gift Shop
THIS GOES ONTO ITS OWN PAGE (NOT CAT)
TEA CUP MAKERS AND MARKERS
Until we upload all of our gallery pages, which will allow you to click on the title of any teacup maker or tea cup name to see more pictures of that cup and saucer and read about the tea leaf reading set, you may peruse this tantalizing list of Designers, Makers, Manufacturers, and Fortune Telling Tea Cup Names.
Makers are designers and pottery manufacturing companies; the term also includes those who have filed for and were granted fortune telling tea cup design patents for which no examples have yet been found, and who may not have actually ever manufactured the patented designs.
Markers are distributors who engage the services of Makers and place their personal or company names in the glaze of the pottery before firing or who distribute the cups with their personal or company names printed on the accompanying hang-tags, boxes, sales brochures, booklets, pamphlets, or instruction sheets.
- Alfred Meakin
- Andrews McMeel Publishing
- Anchor
- Ardalt-Lenwile
- Aynsley
- B. Shackman
- Barnes and Noble
- Booths
- Bradley Exclusives
- Bridgwood
- Canonsburg
- Cavitt-Shaw
- Creative Art Products
- Crown Ducal
- Fairylite Foreign
- Florence Baxter
- Fortuna Cup. Co.
- Genevieve Wimsatt
- H-B
- Hy-Hil Studio
- Heather Lee Harris
- International Collectors Guild
- Jackson and Gosling
- J. and G. Meakin
- Jane Lyle
- John W. Hanley
- Kim Allen
- Knobler
- Laurie Cabot
- Lillian Vernon
- Made in England / Unknown Maker
- Made in Japan / Unknown Maker
- Marguerite Scott
- Maude Brundage
- Morley House Direct Marketing
- Napco
- Nelros
- Old Tupton Ware
- Originality Plus
- Paragon
- Petersyn
- Poole
- Red Rose Tea
- Royal Doulton
- Royal Kendal
- Salem Witchcraft Museum
- Taylor and Kent
- Ucagco
- Unknown Maker / Made in England
- Unknown Maker / Made in in Japan
- Unmarked / England
- Unmarked / Japan
- Victorian Trading Co.
- Wilkinson
- Willets Mfg. Co.
- Ye Olde English
- Zancigs
TEA CUP NAMES, OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL
Hundreds of different patterns of fortune telling cups and saucers have been made over the years, and quite a few have been named by their makers. Sometimes different manufacturers re-used names that another maker had used -- or was still using. Some of the re-used names are mere coincidences, and some are deliberate attempts to defraud the public by illegally copying a title, type font, or images found on a competitor's divining cup.
Official Tea Cup Names are those which are placed in the glaze at the pottery factory before firing or printed on the accompanying hang-tags, boxes, sales brochures, catalogues, booklets, pamphlets, or instruction sheets that accompany a specific style of tea leaf reading cup.
Unofficial Tea Cup Names are those bestowed by collectors, usually when referring to unmarked tea cups or to a class of cups that share a similar design feature. These names may be accompanied by the maker's name and/or a date, if doing so helps to distinguish like-named cups and saucers from one another. Since this is my museum, and, as far as i know, the only fortune telling tea cup museum in the world, the unofficial names found here are mostly my own devising.
- Cup of Destiny (1926) The Zancigs A category with 2 sub-pages)
- Cup of Destiny (2001) Jane Lyle / Barnes and Noble A category with 1 sub-page
- Cup of Fortune (1904) Nelros / Aynsley A category with three sub pages
- Cup of Fortune (1940) Hy-Hil Studio A category with two sub pages
- Cup of Fortune (1964) Red Rose remake this as Taylor and Kent (Red Rose was the customer) A category with three sub-pages)
- Cup of Fortune (1946) Ucagco A category with X number of sub pages
- Cup of Knowledge (1) Alfred Meakin A category with X number of sub pages
- Cup of Knowledge (2) Aynsley A category with X number of sub pages
- Cup of Knowledge (3) Bridgwood A category with X number of sub pages
- Cup of Knowledge (4) Booths A category with X number of sub pages
- Cup of Knowledge (5) Fairylite Foreign A page -- 1 cup
- Cup of Knowledge (6) Jackson and Gosling / Ye Olde English A category with X number of sub pages
- Cup of Knowledge (7) Japan A page -- 1 cup