Washing your bone china dishes needs only warm water and a mild soap. It is best to avoid the use of abrasive products.
We reccomended not using a dish-washer for most bone china dishes. This is because the composition of most cleaning products combined with the hot water can cause loss of lustre on the glaze, colour fading or loss of gold/platinum trim. This is especially true in many of the older patterns.
If you decide to use a machine-wash it would be advisable to do so only once in a while. Wehn you do you should use a milder liquid cleaning product. We suggest avoiding those products that contain bleach or lemon. Finally you should choose the most delicate washing cycle available on your dishwasher.
If your bone china plates have light scuff marks from the scrapping of cutlery, rubbing them lightly with a wet soft cloth and a dab of baking soda or cream of tartar should be sufficient to make them look like new.
If your gold guilding is discoloured after not having been used for a long time, it can be gently cleaned with an gold polish or an ammoniac-based soap soaked on a soft cloth and then rinsed and dried. Soft rubbing works best because vigourous rubbing could cause loss of gold or platinum trim.
The good news is that with just a bit of care in washing your bone china dishes they should continuing to grace your table for many decades.
Hello, I have been collecting teacups for a number of years (starting with the ones my mother left to me) and have now decided to only keep and collect Royal Albert cups and saucers. Is there a full list available that would help me determine which patterns I am still missing. I am guessing I only have about half the patterns if there are 111. Also – are there other names that would be on the China from the earlier years of production that I should be looking for?
Thanks so much for your help. Karen Logan, Ontario Canada – karen@karenloganart.ca.
Hello Karen,
Thank you for contacting me about your collecting.
You will find lots of opportunities to find many more Royal Albert cup and saucer sets because I guess that they made hundreds if not thousands of patterns over the years since 1904. What we have on the website is only a small portion of what they offered their clients over the years. From what I can understand they produced under the name of Albert china before getting a Royal warrant.
Please let us know if we can help you with the items we currently have on our shelves.
Take care,
Laurier