This year (2022) we celebrate the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. 70 years as Queen of the United Kingdom and the commonwealth countries. On 2nd June 1953 the coronation of Elizabeth II took place. At the age of 25 following her fathers death King George VI, Elizabeth was announced as Queen. To mark the occasion many commemorative items (souvenirs) were produced by various different companies. Although mass produced these items are very popular amongst collectors. There is a lot of history to cover with regards to the British monarchy. In this blog I would like to concentrate on some of the items produced for coronations over the last century.
King George VI
On 12th May 1937 the coronation of George VI was held. Edward VIII (George’s older brother) held the throne for the year prior to this but was abdicated on 11th December 1936. Commemorative ware was dominated by kitchenalia over the last 100 years. Cups and glass bowls/dishes being very common.
King George V
Prior to George VI and Edward VIII their father George V was announced as king. The occasion was marked on 22nd June 1911. A slightly different approach to commemorative ware, chocolates in a special edition tin were produced by Rowntree and Co. There were still companies producing other forms of commemorative ware but I thought this was a lovely little item. When this came to us at Wildcard Curiosities we had a fantastic find with newspaper clippings inside. This was a gentleman who lived in Leicester which is where our company is based and he had found the item in an elderly relatives house. He went to the local newspaper to report the find. What a great read of the newspaper snippets this was.
King Edward VII
We have worked our way back from the current Queen of the United Kingdom to 1902 where this blog ends with the coronation of King Edward VII. The event was celebrated on 9th August 1902. Even back at the turn of the century kitchen ware was still popular for marking such occasion. The image below shows a pottery beaker this has no marking as to the maker. Still a lovely antique item in remarkably good condition.
Here at Wildcard Curiosities we have a wide range of British Royal commemorative ware online. If you are interested please take a look for availability and prices. We do offer overseas shipping, unfortunately at present we can only offer this service through eBay’s global shipping program.