This guide provides a basic introduction to collecting children's dishes for the beginning collector.

Child Sized Eating Dishes

(This is PART II, continued from Collecting Children's Dishes - Part I)

A sub-category of children's dishes, actual drinking mugs, plates, feeding bowls, and nappies, that were used to serve children their food at the table, fall into this category. Extensive collections have been built concentrating on children's drinking mugs or ABC plates. There are books available that cater specifically to these collecting specialties.

Early child's English Staffordshire Pearlware drinking mug

When collection children's eating dishes look for good condition and appeal of design. Be aware that some old designs are still reproduced, so look for good, honest wear on the bases of the items. Examples of old looking designs still in production are the Peter Rabbit and Bunnykins ceramics. The marks are clear on these, however so the careful buyer will not have a problem. As always, a good collector guide book will help the collector learn what is common and what is rare.

Important - If your intention is to have a child or adult actually eat or drink from the collected items, be aware that some gold rims on antique china is not considered safe for food use today, since it contains lead. Whenever you are in doubt, you can test your item with an inexpensive lead test swab stick, available in packs of several for about $6 at hardware stores and here on ebay. The test is easy and harmless to the piece. Pieces containing lead are perfectly safe to keep in the house -- as decorative pieces only.

True Toy Dishes

The main category of this area of collecting, and perhaps the category with the broadest appeal are the true toy dishes. Children's toy dishes and tea sets can be found in all materials from the extremely old and pricey treen [wooden] or tin plates from the 17th and 18th centuries, to the space age plastics of the 1960's. The height, in terms of antique quality in children's ceramic tea sets peaked in the mid to late 1800s when Queen Victoria made "taking tea" popular.

Victorian, red transferware, Staffordshire, circa 1880s.

Children's tea set production peaked yet again between 1930 and 1960 when Japan produced many variations of children's tea sets and dishes - all very common on ebay today. Japanese sets are often found in their original boxes, and the boxes are often prominently marked "China Tea Set", but if you look closely, they are marked Japan somewhere - this mildly deceptive marketing practice was used to avoid the post-WWII prejudices.

  Japan Set, c1960s
 

The 19th century tea sets were predominantly English or German. They copied adult style shapes of the time and are marked as to manufacturer, generally. The English sets are often transferware pieces that have an all-over pattern or scene in a single color on white ground, while the German sets tend to have one or two colorful decal transfers showing children or animals on a white-grounded ceramic piece. Early American pieces tend to be hand-painted in design or with a handpainted transfers.

German transferware tea set using colored decals, c1890.

The 20th century Japanese tea sets are either handpainted or transfer decorated or a combination of both. They tend to be much more colorful than the 19th century sets and the shapes, of course, mimic the fashions of the times with more streamlined form. Again, a good collector's book will aid greatly in identification of age and origin. The way the mark is worded can help to date the set.

Japan Luster Tea Set, c1930s

Also, there is a sub-category of collecting Japanese children's tea sets. Occupied Japan sets are a more limited area. These sets were produced only between 1945 and 1952, during the American occupation of Japan after WWII. Japanese goods imported to the US were required to be marked "Occupied Japan". Collectors now search specifically for these pieces. Stylistically they are similar to the pre-war and post-war sets.

On Condition

When purchasing children's tea sets and small pieces, be aware that some damage is almost always inevitable and acceptable, especially in rare sets. Look for sets that display well despite damage and don't pass up a very rare piece even if it has damage -as long as it is priced well.

Damage to this Japanese sugar bowl is confined to the rim beneath the lid - usually considered damage that does not greatly affect the value of the set.

Functionality!

When collecting children's dishes remember that you can make any collection a part of your everyday life. It doesn't have to just sit on a shelf. I use a child's low feeder dish as a "tray" to hold my salt and pepper and toothpick holder on the kitchen table. A friend of mine uses an orphaned child's blue transfer sugar bowl, as a darling container for her vitamins.

And a collection of assorted transferware children's plates looks charming grouped on a wall in a baby's room or guest bath.

Early transferware child's pearlware plate

As in all areas of collecting, experience helps. Owning a good reference book on the subject is the first step to taking a major leap in your experience level on any collecting subject.  For more on this topic, I recommend the book by Margaret Whitmyer, entitled - Children's Dishes. I believe it may be out of print, but still available on ebay, of course! I am sure there are other good books available as well. 

Ultimately, it matters not what the book says -- buy what you love and you will enjoy it.

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Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my guide! For comments, questions, or corrections, please feel free to email me via ebay. Thanks! helene.