Vintage Royal Stafford Coronation Teacup Saucer Queen Elizabeth II – Long May She Reign Banner, Flags, Trumpets, First Year Of Mark 1953

A coronation cup and saucer for Elizabeth II in English bone china, carrying three banners between them: Queen Elizabeth II, June 2nd 1953, and Long May She Reign. The first two record who and when. The third is a wish rather than a record, and the one line on the set that could not be checked on the day it was printed — she went on to reign for seventy years, so it is also the only part of the design that time has answered.

The saucer arranges the furniture of the ceremony around it: a crowned portrait medallion, sheaves of flags crossed at the angles, gold trumpets, the orb and the sceptre, all drawn in fine black line and filled by hand in red, blue, yellow and green. The cup carries a second portrait in a heraldic cartouche with more flags behind it, and The Coronation of Her Majesty below the rim. Both are gilded at the edges, and both are bone china rather than the earthenware most coronation ware used, which is why the black line has stayed so crisp.

Both carry the same printed mark, which on a cup and saucer counts for something, since two pieces married together later would rarely agree: Royal Stafford, Bone China, Made in England, Estd 1845. The 1845 belongs to Thomas Poole, who founded the Longton works; the words Royal Stafford only replaced the old firm's name in 1952. A coronation piece is therefore among the first year or two made under it — a hundred-and-eight-year-old date beside a brand-new name.

Seventy years on the hand-filled reds and blues have not faded, the gilt edges are unbroken, and the two pieces are still together — which, for a set that spent its life being lifted and set down, is the harder part.