Welcome to Violet & Veronica!

We specialise in vintage English bone china - and our particular speciality is pink china from the 1920's-50's. The term 'antique' generally refers to items that are 100 years old or more - and we do not apply the term lightly. The term 'vintage' is applied to items that are 20 years old or more - in the case of fashion sometimes as little as 15. Most of our listings are vintage but some will progress to antique status in as little as a decade. We have seen the value of china and high-end earthenware rise noticeably in the last few years, so in addition to adding beauty, individuality and charm to your home you will most likely also add value in the coming years when buying vintage china.

When it comes to caring for vintage china we would recommend the following:
* Store cups in stacks of 2 or 3, but place a paper napkin or folded square of paper kitchen towel between each cup to prevent possible rubbing of gold detailing on the handles.
* Always wash vintage china by hand. Modern dishwasher detergents are powerful and will damage gold detailing, and potentially also the glaze on vintage china. Why take the risk? Clean the china by hand in hot soapy water, leaving them to soak if necessary and use a medium-soft dish brush or a sponge (avoid a stiff brush or the scouring side of a sponge as they can wear down the china glaze). A thinning or damaged glaze on china is not the end of the world, but it will obviously reduce the lustre and worn glazing inside a cup will make it harder to wash away the tannin stains from tea (especially if you take your tea with milk, stain alert!). For stubborn tea stains in cups and teapots we recommend the following little trick: Fill with warm water mixed with anti-plaque mouthwash or a denture-cleaning tablet (a dissolved Steradent tablet left for an hour or so will work wonders on the inside of a teapot, including the spout). Small bottlebrushes are incredibly handy for cleaning teapot spouts and around/inside teacup handles - they cost next to nothing and will be useful for years to come.

Fret not, we have extensive experience in packing and posting vintage china securely worldwide and we offer a refund or replacement in the unlikely event that an item should arrive damaged.

On the subject of Free Shipping: Etsy recently encouraged Etsy shopkeepers to offer free postage. We have decided against this, as the only way to offer free postage is for a shop to raise the prices of their listings in order to offer 'free shipping'. We ship worldwide, so in our case that would mean raising our listing prices to cover the cost of postage to the most far-flung parts of the globe - and that would be completely unfair to those customers who are located in Europe, and to any customer who purchases more than one item, as they would no longer benefit from combined postage discounts. We will continue to charge our normal non-inflated listing prices, with the appropriate country-specific postage costs added on top. We think this is only fair.