Royal Crown Derby

Royal Crown Derby Paperweights

Royal Crown Derby Paperweights are of exceptional quality made from English Bone China and hand decorated in various Imari patterns, generally with 22 carat gold highlighting. The base has a gold or silver stopper in the hole, the purpose of the hole is to fill with a dense material such as sand or lead pellets in order to allow the function of a paperweight. In practice I have never seen anyone fill them this way and the paperweights are kept as decorative examples of brilliant design and decoration. The gold stopper denotes a first quality item, while the silver stopper is used for those that fail first quality control, yet are still of high quality and sold by Royal Crown Derby. With quality control so meticulous, it can often be hard to determine why a paperweight may have been given a silver stopper. These are often passed off as first quality, yet with a keen eye, one can usually pick up on a tiny imperfection, often with the hand painted decoration or gilding and can represent somewhat of a bargain.