Decorative china coffee or tea set made in Japan drips with gold and pink design

I've put this little tea or coffee pot set up on Ebay again to see if I can sell it.  It's a very decorative piece but basically it's a vintage reproduction Made in Japan as a copy of other vintage or antique tea or coffee services.  This has the little classic French medallion of rustic courtesans playing outside and the whole thing is painted in very bright rosy magenta tone and gold splashes of paint making it light up a lot in a cabinet case.

It has six cups and saucers, each cup about 3 inches high and saucer almost 4 inches across.  The tea pot or coffee server stands about 7 inches high and the creamer and sugar bowl are equally well proportioned and equally well gilded and painted. There's nothing wrong with this set except it says "For Decorative Use Only" stamped on the bottom in gold print, leading me to think that the paints have metallic or other elements in them that might leach into real coffee and tea.  So the set is for decoration only!

It's a shame really as it would be rather nice to have one's coffee served in this over-the-top antique copy coffee service!

At any rate I have partitioned it into two lots and put them up on Ebay for sale. One listing is for the six teacups with saucers and the other is the pot with creamer and sugar bowl.   I've written about them in social media before saying these may be useful for crafts purposes or for decorative uses.  I'm thinking of the people who make bird feeders out of coffee cups by glueing them to wooden posts or who make artful arrangements of coffee pots into water fountains and things.  I suppose I might do something like that myself if I don't sell them first!
Follow up Note:  No one wanted this after two years up on Ebay, so I donated it to a thrift shop, hoping someone would find it. 

A Dozen Cups

My  mother-in-law left me a baker's dozen of wonderful American China tea cups made by a company in Crooksville, Ohio, probably made in the 1930s or 1940s. They are a lovely cream color and have delicate handle and a raised vine type frieze around the rim of the saucer and around the bottom of the cup.  Such lovely detail!

They are wonderful to look at and serve a lovely cuppa tea. Of course, I have them up for sale on Ebay  but these are going to be really hard to let go of as I keep

thinking I will have a tea party and need them.  It's the English person in me who can't let go of these. But I'm hoping there's someone else who really wants them and will buy them

 

Amazing Artifacts in Old House

Jewel encrusted gold chalice

Icon with Apostles

French desk with hideaways

Sevres soup tureen

Despite living in Washington DC for decades, it was only recently that we visited the Hillwood Museum and Estates. It's an old house that I'd heard about that was owned by very rich woman, Marjorie Meriweather Post. Apparently, she inherited a lot of money from her dad who'd founded Post food products (including Postum, the coffee substitute that was the source of their original wealth).  She collected all kinds of stuff including some very interesting things she bought during the 1930s from the then Soviet Russian "Republic."  The Communists were selling and melting down chalices and icons from the churches and otherwise obliterating any vestiges of the aristocracy, such as china, furniture and jewelry from rich families, much of which incorporated the history and culture of Russia.  So she bought things up and brought them back and displayed them in her house. She also liked French aristocratic items, including jewels and ornate furniture which can be seen in this house all placed where she actually lived with it.  You get to walk through the dining room and her bedroom and see a lot of her collections.  Also, there's some interesting photographs and pictures and lovely garden.  This place is worth seeing, just for seeing a way of life and the icon and china collections. Quite interesting!

View from the Japanese Garden of the house with the collections