20061205

Very similar egg cups 2


Welcome to the second post of our series exploring the notion of 'originality' in the world of egg cups! Today we examine four pieces that seem to be part of the same family of reading eggs, but were actually aren't. Read carefully.

Amazing details: 1) this egg cup, where the soft-boiled egg is supposed to read an imaginary version of German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, was produced by the German company Harlekin, it has a sticker marked ""Original Handarbeit, Made in Germany, Harlekin" and was bought in Germany in 1988 [eggcup0709]; 2) here the soft-boiled egg reads Le Figaro, the egg cup has a sticker marked "Harlekin Geschenke-Wiesbaden" and ""Vergiss nicht die schönen Dinge des Lebens", and it was bought in France in 1986 [eggcup0490]; 3) in this case the soft-boiled egg reads a realistic Financial Times dated from March 1988, and there is no mark, and no sticker [eggcup4223]; 4) here the soft-boiled egg reads a Women magazine, the egg cup was bought in London in 1982 and seems to be, therefore, the oldest of the four. Is it the 'original' one, or was its design inspired from another model? The question remains open!

To see our first post on egg cups that remind us of other egg cups, please check the Very similar egg cups post.