Antique WH Goss Edward VII Coronation Dish – Royal Cypher Crown Monogram, Fluted Rim, Goshawk Mark, Postponed Crowning, England 1902

The Latin ribbon on this little dish declares Edward VII crowned 26 June 1902 — and like the Edward VIII pieces of 1937, the date is wrong. Two days before the ceremony the King went down with appendicitis; Sir Frederick Treves — the surgeon remembered as the Elephant Man's friend — operated on a table set up in a Buckingham Palace dressing room. "It will be a funeral, if you don't have the operation," runs the famous reply to a king protesting that he had a coronation on hand. The crowning happened six weeks late, on 9 August; the souvenirs, printed by the million, kept the old date. Collectors thus get a matched pair of stories: 1902, the coronation that moved — 1937, the coronation that never was. This shop now holds both.

The dish itself comes from a name that means something: W.H. Goss of the Falcon Pottery, Stoke-on-Trent, the house that put a piece of ivory porcelain in nearly every Edwardian home. The goshawk backstamp is a pun on the Falcon works; the crowned cypher at the centre interlaces E and A — Edward and his queen, Alexandra — with Tudor rose, shamrock and thistle hidden inside the letters, over the full Latin royal style ending Ind. Imp., Emperor of India, a title that would outlive him by only four decades.

Sixteen soft flutes, thin ivory body, a comfortable 3.5 inches — a ring dish with a scalpel of a story. Honest wear is disclosed below and priced in.