No ceramic specimens are of more interest to the American china collector than the pieces of dark blue Staffordshire crockery that were manufactured in such vast variety of design, and were imported in such great numbers to America in the early years of this century. Their beauty of color—the color called by the Chinese “the light of heaven,” a blue like the lapis the Bishop wished for his tomb at St. Praxed’s, a tint unexcelled and hardly equalled in modern wares—makes them a never-ceasing delight to the eye; and the historical character of the decoration frequently adds to their interest and value. Mr. Prime wrote in 1876 of these pieces of crockery, “they have ceased to be common, are indeed becoming rare, and collectors will do well to secure good specimens.” Since that year specimens have become rarer and more valuable still. The Staffordshire pieces that date from the year 1830 to 1850, though still printed with American views, are lighter and duller in tint of blue, and are more frequently stamped in green, pink, sepia, chocolate, black, or plum color. The designs, as well as the colors, are weaker, as if fading gradually and dying into the vast expanse of dead-white crockery and china which spread its uninteresting level over the tables of country folk for the quarter of a century that elapsed before the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, that turning-point in household art decoration in America. [Illustration: Pickle Leaf.] The shapes of the pieces of table-ware also became degraded, and were not so graceful as the Staffordshire tea and dinner sets of the first quarter of this century. One specially pretty piece that came with many dark blue dinner sets of the latter-named date was the low fruit-dish with its tray, both with pierced basket-work borders. The pickle leaves also were gracefully shaped. The pitchers, both of the table and toilet sets, were graceful, and “poured” well, that most important, and ofttimes lacking, attribute of pitchers. Both basins and pitchers of toilet sets were, however, inconveniently small. There was also not the monotony of design which we find nowadays on sets of china. I mean that all the pieces of a set were not stamped with the same design. I am convinced that the tea-sets, such as the familiar Tomb of Washington and Tomb of Franklin design, seldom were furnished with a set of plates bearing the same decoration, but consisted only of teapot, water-pot, creamer, slop-bowl, sugar-bowl, and occasionally two cake-plates. The copper-lustre china tea-sets of the early part of the century seldom had tea-plates like the rest of the sets. [Illustration: Philadelphia Library Plate.]