My mum, like everyone else's mum, had a tea set we only used when we had visitors. This tea set was a Mother's Day gift from my dad.
In 2005, I had the unfortunate fate of chipping one of the tea cups while washing up. So I borrowed a friend's phone, took a picture and googled it to see if I could find a replacement cup. I couldn't find the pattern nor could I find the company, Huguenot Royale. There were maybe two "For Sale" adverts on the whole world wide web.
I had stumbled across a mystery and I still had a cup to replace! So every couple of months, I would fire up Google to see if someone was selling the cup. The more I searched, the more enchanted I grew with every Huguenot Royale pattern I found. I started saving patterns to a private picture catalogue (which I can't share as I don't own any rights to those photos).
It's been 13 years since my search began and I've never found details on the company. But I'm convinced they were a South African company that dominated the crockery industry in the 1980's. I've seen commemorative patterns for the likes of SAA (South African Airways) and most of the sellers posted within South Africa.
The closest I came to finding my cup, was seeing it among Huguenot Royale crockery in a murky photo from an auction that had ended. So I'm hoping that by starting this blog, I can catalogue the patterns, put some facts together and solve this mystery. You are welcome to post titbits of information and share photos of Huguenot Royale crockery (effectively granting the use of your photos on this blog).
You are welcome to post titbits of information and share photos of Huguenot Royale crockery (effectively granting the use of your photos on this blog).
If you're looking for or selling Huguenot Royale crockery, you are welcome to send me your advert links to post on this blog as long as you grant me permission to publish your photos (credited to you) on this site (with a little blog about your set) and/or any other blog (in case I have to move blog sites on short notice). You will retain ownership of your photos and you are welcome to rescind your permission at any time but you must send me notice in writing/email.
If, by some miracle, I actually scrape together enough information to publish a catalogue of Huguenot Royale (hopefully with some information on the company itself!), I will seek your permission again to use your photos in that publication.
Special thanks to Greenlava @ http://www.bloggersentral.com/ for the Pinterest button!
Hey. Great work! I know somebody that has a vast Royal Hueugenot collection. I need to learn more and would love it if you could write a guest blog post article on Royal Hueugenot. Can you pop me an email? vintage.ceramics.sa@gmail.com. thx! Kobus
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