I woke up early this morning. Calculating when Scout will need to be let outside has become a part of the fabric of our days. We keep a chart on the chalkboard, right by the kitchen door. I knew that I had to get out of bed by 6 am at the latest and when I woke at 5:30, I hoped I could go back to sleep for a half an hour. But you know how it goes. Thoughts start to intrude. Will I wake up? Should I go downstairs now? Has an accident occurred? And pretty soon it’s almost 6. So I got up. She was on her perch on the sofa, awake, watching me as I came down the stairs.
Just in time.
She’s such a good girl. Most of the time, the three of us somehow manage to make things run smoothly and Scoutie can rest easy. Sometimes we miss the mark. But it’s a guilt-free zone here at the cottage. We love our girl.
We took a walk the other day, down the road to the river.
Those are Canada Geese. There are hundreds of them on the river this time of year. All the way down to that bend and up and down the river beyond the range of my iPhone camera. The sheer number of them is astounding. Such beautiful creatures.
It’s time for egg cups!
There are all sorts of egg cups. When I started collecting about fourteen years ago, I was drawn to figural egg cups because of their charming and whimsical designs. They are the bulk of my collection. But I have others, as well. Figural egg cups are getting harder and harder to find. Fourteen years ago, there seemed to be a lot to choose from, especially on eBay. I could be found on our computer, day and night, sneaking in a bid or two. It was a lot of fun, this new collecting obsession of mine. It still is, but finding the sort of detailed figural egg cup I love is much more difficult these days. I’m picky and I like vintage. Newish egg cups aren’t as well made or as inventive. There are exceptions, but not many. So I’m branching out and extending my collection to include other shapes and types of egg cups.
In terms of a basic egg cup, there are two kinds: double and single. A single egg cup has one cup, usually the perfect size to hold a hard-boiled egg – or a soft-boiled egg – right in its shell. The double egg cup has that same sized cup and another larger cup used to eat a soft-boiled egg.
Almost all my figural egg cups are single egg cups, but I will highlight them separately. Here are my basic single egg cups:
From left to right:
1. One of the very first egg cups I purchased – a lovely lustreware egg cup made in Japan. I love the blue green band on the rim.
2. Don brought this egg cup home to me from Prague. That’s the skyline of Prague, and the word Praha (Prague).
3. Unmarked. A more recent find. It’s very heavy, which makes me think it might be ironstone. The scene depicted is Asian, not sure if it’s Japan or China. I think it’s quite old. I found it last summer in Chautauqua.
4. Another egg cup, this time square in shape, from Prague. Thanks Don!
5. A Delft egg cup from Holland, marked with the number 28. It was a gift from my mom. When Mom heard I was collecting egg cups, she would look for them wherever she went. I have several from her.
Double egg cups:
1. One of my earliest acquisitions. I call it the Rooster Egg Cup. Marked: Holt Howard 1961. Japan. This egg cup was in pristine condition until I dropped it one day. I wanted to scream. But instead, I glued it back together.
2. Another early acquisition – a basic green and white double egg cup. Unmarked. It probably was part of a set of dinnerware.
3. A red transferware double egg cup. It’s unmarked, but it’s made by Johnson Bros. I love that pattern.
4. Brown transferware double egg cup, made in England. Marked Mason’s Vista. One of my favorites.
5. Flow blue double egg cup. Vintage. (Well I guess most of the egg cups are vintage!) Unmarked.
More tomorrow. If you have any questions, fire away! I love talking about my egg cups. We’ll start on the figural cups tomorrow.
Happy Wednesday.
Scout is lucky to live with such understanding people. We once had a Border Collie and she was acutely embarrassed by “mistakes” when she got old. As you said, all you can do is be supportive and non-judgmental – we’re all going to get old one day.
Your egg cups are fascinating – I especially like the square one. I did not know that egg cups were used for hard-boiled eggs as well. When I was growing up, we ate hard-boiled eggs on picnics (sort of a finger-food) and only soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. Thank you for sharing!
Scout is very embarrassed by that sort of thing. We learned, when our Riley was getting incapacitated, that getting upset was not the thing to do. He tried and that’s all that mattered.
A very pretty and eclectic collection of egg cups, Claudia. My favourite is the Rooster Egg Cup, for its motif and magically glued together history.
Happy Spring!!
Poppy
You can see a crack in the back where I glued it together. It’s fortunate that the break didn’t happen on the face of the cup.
My elderly cat has digestive issues that cause her to throw up, more than occasionally, but not quite regularly. Yes, we just go about cleaning it up and not make a fuss, though I think cats are not that easily embarrassed… Love the egg cup photos and descriptions!
Cats are probably better with all of that than dogs. Scout gets embarrassed, poor thing!
Oh, I’m so glad that you decided to do a feature on your egg cup collection. I really enjoyed the first installment with how you started collecting and the back story on each cup. I am really looking forward to tomorrow.
Thanks so much, Sandra. I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
Love seeing your great collection especially the ones Don brought you from his trip! Scout is such a sweetie even as she ages she still has her Smile.
She still does, Dottie, and we’re so grateful!
Claudia, You really own some unusual egg cups. I love that square one. I have an egg cup, I would love to send to you…if you get on my email and send me your address, I will send it. Blessings, xoxo,Susie
That’s awfully sweet of you, Susie! Thank you!
Claudia, I think I saw a few “new to me” egg cups in this post!! See, always worth a re-visit.
Sweet Scout. They do try so very hard to please us. Each day with them is a diamond.
Yes, indeed. She’s the apple of my eye.
I love egg cups – I think they are so charming. I have maybe 10, but none of them are figural. You are right – they’re very hard to find.
So hard to find now. I think I got in the collecting end of things just in time to snag some beautiful figurals.
I love your egg cups! Your amazing collection began my own interest in them – but I only have four. I have them on a little shelf in my kitchen. Four is probably my limit – space is just to scarce here to add more. But I sure do love them!
I’m short on space now, too, so I’m pretty picky about what I buy now.
Even though the weather may not say so…I know spring is coming, when you start talking about your egg cup collection. Thank you for that! I guess in all the posts you’ve done about egg cups, I never realized that some cups were double egg cups. My favorite of today’s spread, is the rooster cup…so sweet! ;)
It’s a pretty neat egg cup, Donnamae.
You know how much I LOVE egg cups. Your collection is always fun to see. I found a new addition to my collection recently and I’ll share it soon. I agree that as our pets age we can’t get upset with their accidents. I will probably have some myself one of these days :) Scout is such a sweet girl.
hugs,
Linda
Can’t wait to see your newest addition, Linda.
I had no idea there were so many kinds of egg cups. What fun to see them all.
Thanks, Barbara! There are a lot more coming.
So glad that you have worked out a schedule that seems to work for Scout and you. It is so hard to see an aging pet struggle with things that happen to them. Heartbreaking on so many levels. They sorely hate to disappoint us and know when they do without us saying a word.
LOVE those egg cups! You have such a wonderful collection, Claudia. xo Diana
She’s pretty stoic but I can tell it’s hard for her and that breaks my heart.
Love the river photo. It looks like spring is on it’s way for you, too, finally. Poor Scout. She is a lucky girl to have you and Don and your wonderful care of her. I hope I have someone like you when I get old! :-) The egg cups are beautiful. I used to collect bells and have one that says Praha on it from my husband’s trip to Prague. Its’ beautiful too.
Blessings,
Betsy
I hope to visit there myself one day!
OK I do have a question. I never heard of “double” egg cups before today. My mother had 8 plain white single egg cups, enough for a family breakfast at our house. I think they were part of our everyday dinnerware set. But I remember taking the egg from the cup and cracking it into a little Pyrex custard bowl to eat it. So, let me see if I have this down. With the DOUBLE cups, the egg arrives at the table, cooked, in the smaller end of the cup, and the diner turns the cup over, cracks the egg open in the larger cup section, and proceeds to eat. ?? PS – I love how specialized things were for dining back in the day. Flatware sets had pieces for everything – cake breakers, tomato knives, fish forks, fruit knives, it goes on and on. Enjoy your day!
Yes, or if you have a soft boiled egg, you can scoop out the egg and serve it in the larger egg cup. Or you can hard boil an egg, crack the shell and eat it in the smaller cup.
Scout is such a sweet soul. We’ll do anything for our beloved babies won’t we? I am completely enchanted by your egg cups. I have so many dishes but have never started an egg cup collection. I think one is in my future. Your daily walks must be delightful by that river.
Big Texas Hugs,
Susan and Bentley
The river is awfully pretty. We have two that intersect right down the road, so we have a lot of water nearby.
Hi Claudia, I didn’t realize they were called a double egg cups, I always thought that was just the design. Doris
The design and also a practical use, Doris!
We’ve limped along with more than one elderly “house” dog whose bladder no longer works the way it should. The love for them trumps any ‘damage’ to the house; just have to keep the eye peeled and, yes, awareness…I will say, though, that dealing with this for one dog who was also blind set up a bad pattern of sleep/non-sleep for me, as I ‘slept’ with one ear ‘open’ and it took me a few years to break that pattern after she was gone; I guess it was never REM sleep, obviously, as I had created an ‘alert’ status for myself. But I’d do it again; I loved my girl, too. With humans when these medical conditions occur, we have the option for adult briefs (“diapers” – not a ‘feel-good’ word, but that’s what they are, and thanks above that we have them) but, for dogs, no. And the poor old dogs get so bewildered; they have no idea what’s happening to their aging bladders/bodies, dear things. I had a friend whose dog reached age 20 and she had her entire first floor covered in ‘pee-pee’ pads; guests just had to get okay with it, and we did. Dog ‘owners’/dog lovers understand these things.
The egg cups are an education for me! I know ZIP about egg cups.
Love, love, LOVE seeing the photos of your locale, always. I wish in SoCal we still had rivers which looked full like that! Our creek has been dry now for awhile and our river is not really a river anymore, just a ditch you could easily scale by jumping across it with your two feet. It’s pitiful. We’re 90 degrees (F) right now, 1:30pm, at the start of a heatwave, plus the hot wind is blowing hard, and they say we’ll get this for a week. We’re parched and really had no winter and we skip Spring. My husband and I are seriously contemplating a move when he retires in the next soon-ish years although we’d thought we were set. Endless summer, in reality, isn’t pretty. We did get some rain over the past few months (not enough) and they say our reservoirs are full enough at the moment, but this is only March; the grasses in the foothills are already dry, like straw. It makes me nervous. I don’t want to have to think about the weather and mandatory water restrictions, although necessary, are annoying. East: Snow. West: Drought. There’s gotta be a middle ground, somewhere…
Anyway, looking forward to more upstate photos…and egg cups! Thanks for the interesting post.
Well, they do have diapers for dogs, Vicki! But Scout has too much hair for that to work. Plus, she’d never put up with it!
I enjoy seeing your egg cups! My favorite today is the rooster one. So glad you were able to glue it back together so successfully. I just recently accidentally dropped a favorite ceramic figurine which shattered into many tiny pieces and I was unable to glue it back together….
We had two elderly female Shetland sheepdogs a few years back that we adored and they both began having accidents, and like Scout they were mortified. Our Vet had an easy remedy for them which was one estrogen pill a day. It worked wonderfully for them and had no bad side effects. Claudia, you might want to ask your own Vet about it for Scout. It’s considered to be a common treatment for female dogs only, of course, and it usually is successful.
I’ll ask the vet about it, Lily. She has very few pee accidents because we’re on top of the ‘schedule.’ Her hind quarter muscles are definitely weak. The same thing happened with our Riley.
I think it must be fun having a collection that you truly enjoy… And-
That those who know you know that you enjoy it. How wonderful they gifted you with additions to your collection.
Scout is such a sweetie. It is wonderful that you have her and she has yall!
We’re crazy about her, as you know, Pat. She’s doing pretty well considering she’s 16!
Lovely
Scoutie
Thank
Goodness
She
Has
WONDERFUL you. . . . . . . . . . . and Don xx
Your egg cup collection is so fabulous Claudia – being raised on many a morning with a soft-boiled egg and toast soldiers to dip in, I love egg cups because they bring back many memories of ‘the good old days’ for me.
Hugs – Mary
I’m Australian, and greatly intrigued by the concept of breaking a soft boiled egg into a dish to eat it. I have been brought up to cut off the top , and eat it straight from the shell. I also have a double egg cup, an item that was brought back from China by my friend’s grandparents, who were missionaries. The base is the size for a normal hen’s egg, and the other, larger end accommodates a duck egg.
By the way, I love your blog, and enjoy your book reviews.
Love the Holt Howard..he is one of my favorite designers from back then..his items are so whimsical and fun..I have one candle holder to match this egg cup..at least it was savable and can still be displayed..