A dinner service is a matching set of plates, dishes and serving pieces made to be used together at the dining table. A full antique service might include dinner, soup and side plates in quantity, graduated meat platters, vegetable dishes with covers, soup and sauce tureens with stands and ladles, and sauce boats, all decorated in a single pattern.
Large matched services became fashionable in Britain during the eighteenth century, first through Chinese export porcelain, often ordered with armorials, and then through English makers such as Wedgwood, whose creamware was supplied to royalty and the aristocracy. In the nineteenth century factories including Spode, Minton, Copeland, Coalport, Mason's and Royal Worcester produced services in porcelain, bone china, ironstone and transfer-printed earthenware, from blue and white patterns to richly gilded designs. When assessing a service, buyers count the pieces, check that patterns and marks are consistent, and look for chips, cracks, rubbed gilding, staining and knife scratches. Rarer serving pieces such as tureens and platters often carry much of the value. Services are sometimes split at auction, so complete examples in good condition are increasingly uncommon.
