The largest category of Royal Wedding commemoratives consists of china. Scores of different plates, cups and saucers, mugs, Devon cream churns, tankards, glasses, pin boxes, ginger jars, thimbles, enamel medallions, and other items were turned out by dozens of manufacturers at prices ranging from mass market items costing a few pounds to limited edition pieces created by some of Britain's finest pottery makers that cost hundreds of pounds. Just how many different items exist cannot be known since guides to royal collectibles show only a fraction of what is available, but there are at least 102 different china items listed in Douglas Flynn’s British Royal Commemoratives, which lists products by well established companies such as Wedgwood, Coalport, Royal Doulton, and Aynsley. Most of the china was manufactured before the wedding and thus shows engagement pictures, photos of Diana taken from the Vogue shoot by Lord Snowden or head shots from the nursery school photo shoot where she was photographed with her legs showing through a cotton skirt, silhouettes, or designs based on their initials, but a few pieces were manufactured after the wedding and feature pictures taken on their wedding day, such as the Coalport loving cup and thimble displayed here.
Enamel medallion by an unknown maker. The only time I have ever seen this item was when I bought it on ebay from a young woman in London. If anyone can give me any further information on it, I would greatly appreciate it, since it is a really lovely item.
Many manufacturers packaged
their brands of hard candies, chocolates, coffee, tea, or biscuits in special
commemorative containers that were bright, colorful, and imaginatively
designed. Their attractiveness coupled with their usefulness once the contents
were gone probably accounts for why so many of them have survived. Unlike
the china, all of them were done before the wedding.
One tea tin purports to show
them in their wedding clothes, but close examination shows it to be one
of the engagement pictures, which has been altered to show them in wedding
clothes, since the dress on the tin bears very little resemblance to the
real dress. If any were released after the wedding, they must be extremely
rare since I have not seen any listed in any books on royal commemoratives,
on the sites of royal memorabilia dealers, or on ebay. The only tin featuring
Diana that I am aware of that was issued at any later time is a tin commemorating
"the birth of the first child to the Prince and Princess of Wales.
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