Hi friends!

I am so excited and happy because… I’ve bought more teacups! Which in itself isn’t a huge thing (I’ve bought so many online, after all), but these are the first teacups that I’ve bought in person from an antique market and that is a new experience for me.

A friend introduced me to the Best of Nice blog (would highly recommend it – I’ve been reading it a lot to find recommendations!) and in one of the posts, the blog mentioned that on Mondays, Cours Saleya turns into an antique market. Naturally, I thought of teacups. So I jio-ed (invited) my roommate to come with me.

The market was pretty interesting. It’s definitely mainly antiques and a lot of it seems to be from China and Japan. I saw a lot of what looked like ukiyo-e paintings and Chinese vases. I even saw this box with Chinese words on it.

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There are quite a few stalls selling vintage teacups BUT most of the stalls sell them as a full service set, i.e. 5 or more teacups with the saucers and cake plates, a teapot, sugar bowl, etc. Per piece I don’t think it’s very expensive, but the total was generally more than I could afford and I don’t really have the space either.

But, I did stumble across one store where the proprietor spoke English so instead of just asking “combien coute ce tasse” (the French is probably wrong but most people understood me, thankfully) and leaving, I also managed to ask “do you have any pieces that are not in a set?” And one thing led to another and I bought these three duos!

Aren’t they pretty?

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On the way back, we got more ice cream because I wanted to introduce the store to my roommate – I tried the speculoos flavour and I think it might be my favourite flavour of the three that I’ve tried so far!

Back to the teacups – the back stamp for the two white ones indicate that they were made by Ballorey et Cie between 1908 to 1937 and the other one seems to be made by Sineger, but I’m unable to date it by the mark. That’s all I can find for now, but I’m just so happy to have some vintage teacups with me again!