Vintage Queen Elizabeth II 40th Anniversary Plate – Ruby Year Colour Photo Portrait, Embossed Basketweave Rim, Union Jacks, England 1992

Between the Silver Jubilee of 1977 and the Golden of 2002 lies a year almost nobody commemorated. The 40th anniversary of the Queen's accession — the Ruby year, 1952–1992 — passed with no parades, no street parties, and very little china: the potteries largely sat it out, which makes a 1992 plate the hardest square to fill on any Elizabeth II timeline.

History supplied the reason, and the irony. At the very luncheon held to mark this anniversary, four days after fire gutted Windsor Castle, the Queen delivered the most famous speech of her seventy-year reign: "1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure… it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis." Three of her children's marriages failed that year; the plate's gentle smiling portrait — pale blue lace, sapphires, a 1990s official photograph framed in golden wheat — was fired against that storm.

The plate itself leans on quieter charms: a rim of white-on-white embossing, basketweave panels alternating with moulded roses, daffodils and thistles in the old creamware tradition, catching shadow rather than gilt. Crossed Union Jacks and St Edward's Crown stand over the portrait; oak scrolls and the four nations' flowers gather beneath the banner 40th Anniversary of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, 1952–1992. The reverse is unmarked — honestly disclosed, and kindly reflected in the price.

For the collector completing the reign year by year, the Crown season-five watcher, or anyone who appreciates that the unhappiest year made the scarcest plate.