Pam’s Pictorama Post: Sometimes I run into Felix items online that just surprise the heck out of me. And after looking at Felix china in various forms for years I thought there will be nothing new – until there is. Not surprisingly, it is often the Felix loving Britons who seem to cough up a surprising new tidbit and today’s purchase is no exception in that regard.

This mug is unmarked, but unlike my prior post Dishing Felix, which featured a bowl I deeply suspected was hand painted, this little item may have been factory made. The Felix is charmingly off model and there is some smudging of the glaze, and when I look very carefully there is a extra daub of blue on the handle. which means even if it was made in a factory, it was likely to have been the product of human hands. (Felix seems to have been a cottage industry there. I imagine lines of early 20th century British women seated and painting scores of these.)

I was quite surprised to discover how small this cup was when it arrived. It is a bit larger than doll size or toy size, more like the size of a cup of espresso, no saucer. There are no factory or maker marks on it anywhere. I especially like the way Felix’s ears and paw touch the lip of the cup, like he is ducking under. His whiskers are jaunty as well and his design seems to be stenciled on rather than painted freehand, like the bowl mentioned above.

If I had hopes of sipping my morning coffee out of this guy, it is disappointingly small, although charming. I don’t remember playing with a tea set when I was little, but think I would have found this cup endearing at any age. It leaves me wondering if there was a full set that went along with it – coffee or teapot, saucers. However, this may have been a sole gewgaw that sat on a shelf, or perhaps someone did indeed drink small bitter coffees from it. Since I am known for wading in deep, plentiful cups of coffee (for an ode to my love of coffee a post about it can be found here at Coffee) this tiny mug will not serve my purposes. If I want to drink my daily joe from an ancient Felix mug I will need to continue my search.