Heraldic souvenir ware

Heraldic souvenir ware

Souvenir ware is the name of small porcelain, bone china or ceramic items produced as souvenir items. They are popular all over the world and include items ranging from 1-2 cm up to 15-20 cm. The objects range from small vases in all kinds of shapes, people, monuments to animals or small plates. Most had the name of a town or place imprinted, but also generic decorations or floral motifs were used. A small percentage also had the arms of the town where the item was sold. Examples of those are included here.

The first of these were issued in the UK around 1895-1900 and became hugely popular as Crested china. Many of the crested china figurines were initially produced in Germany, hence also items with German or other continental arms exist from that time. The crested china disappeared largely in the 1920s.

A second boom was in the 1950s and 1960s mainly in Germany and Austria, but also from other countries. Contrary to the rather small crested china, the 1950s items are generally larger (6-8 cm high) and often gilded.

The images below are items from the HOTW collection and sorted by country. Dating is often impossible as the items are very rarely marked.

Larger items, such as vases that can actually be used as a vase, and plates are not listed here, but under the respective other categories.