Vintage Paragon Teacup Only – Burgundy Band, Hand Painted Rose Bouquet, Gilt Scroll Handle, Royal Warrant Bone China, 1940s–1950s

Count the warrants under this cup and it tells you when it was made. Paragon received its first royal appointment from Queen Mary in 1933, and a second from Queen Elizabeth — the future Queen Mother — in 1938. Between 1939 and 1949 the firm printed both on its base. This one names only Queen Elizabeth: which places it either side of that double-warrant decade, most likely the 1950s. (And note what it does not say — there is no II. This is not Elizabeth II's warrant; it belongs to her mother.)

Paragon worked the royal connection harder than any English pottery: nursery china for the infant Princess Elizabeth in 1926, warrants in 1933 and 1938, a commemorative for every royal occasion after. That habit shows even on ordinary tableware like this — the gilt at the foot, the gold laid along the handle, the double gold lines closing the colour band.

The design is almost nothing, done well: a burgundy band inside the cup, brushed by hand on a banding wheel (look closely and the edge breathes slightly — a printed band would be dead straight), a hand-painted bouquet at the centre with a pink rose at its heart, and the outside left plain cream but for two fine gold lines.

That is a deliberate English idea: colour inside, white outside. The drinker looks down into something rich; the person across the table sees something quiet. One cup, two faces.

Footed, scalloped, with a fully gilt S-scroll handle.

Said plainly: this is the cup alone. Its saucer is long gone — as saucers usually are, being the flat thing that gets stacked, chipped and thrown out first. It is priced as an orphan, not as a set. If you already have the saucer waiting, this is your cup; if you don't, it does perfectly well as a cabinet piece, a small vase, or the prettiest pen pot on a desk.