Why is nearly everything blue and white?

Cobalt blue was the colour that survived the glaze firing reliably, and blue-printed earthenware was made in England in quantity from about 1780 as a cheaper answer to hand-painted and imported china. On Sellingantiques it shows in the numbers: blue and white each appear in thirty-five of fifty-six titles. Other palettes exist, mainly the multicolour Prattware plates, but they are a small tail.

Are these sold singly or in sets?

Both, and sets are common. Plates appears in the plural in a third of titles, with sampled groups of four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve and seventeen. The largest recorded are a set of seventeen dessert plates dated 1845 and a set of twelve dinner plates with a named family provenance.

What does Georgian mean on one of these?

It works as a style label rather than a precise date bracket, applied across roughly the first third of the 19th century. Georgian blue appears in fifteen titles and English Georgian in fourteen. The dealers' own dating is often broad. Twenty-seven listings are recorded simply as 19th Century, though the title itself may carry a closer circa date.

Which patterns turn up?

Willow and Italian are the familiar ones. Alongside them the sampled listings include Returning Home, The Villagers, Returning Woodman, Classical Ruins, Bridge of Lucano, The Cowman, Penang, Japan, Gorhambury and Chinese Garden. Roughly a fifth of titles name a pattern outright. A substantial minority name none, and those tend to be the plainly titled meat plates and serving plates.

Do children's plates appear in this category?

Occasionally. Three sampled listings: a nursery alphabet plate dated around 1800, a set of four child's pearlware plates from 1820, and a single Victorian nursery transfer pearlware plate. They sit near the top of the sampled range where the listing states rarity.

How often do these come up for sale?

Twenty-four dealers have listed in the category and roughly eight pieces come to market a year on Sellingantiques. So you meet them in ones and twos rather than in bulk, and the unusual forms appear once each: a hot-water plate, a footed bread stand, a fretted platter, a sauce tureen stand.

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Antique Transferware Plates

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Earthenware and stoneware plates and dishes printed from engraved copper plates by paper tissue, made in England from the later 18th century as affordable pictorial tableware.