We are absolutely delighted to announce that one of our products has been shortlisted as a potential winner of The Giftware Association Gift of the year.

The egg cups are beautifully designed by Keith Brymer Jones and forms part of the extensive The Word range, which has a very clean and relatively minimalist design throughout.

Having a set of egg cups which are always asking the question What came first, the chicken or the egg will always make yours breakfast thought provoking. But equally important is the functionality of the egg cup, because if you have ever tried to eat toasted soldiers without an egg cup it is a nightmare, and a guaranteed way to ruin your morning eggs.

For some however the business of egg cups is a very serious matter. The humble egg cup is actually a collectible item which has its own term Pocillovy which derives from the Latin pocillum for small cup and ovi for eggs.

There are newsletters for egg cup collectors from "Eggcup Collectors' Corner" in the U.S. and, "Egg Cup International Club" in UK. There are also egg cupconventions for collectorshere in the UK, with some antique egg cups being valued and going on to sell at auction for hundreds of pounds.

There may be a good explanation as to why there is such a fondness for egg cups around the world. Many children growing up are introduced to something we call toasted soldiers. If you are not sure what that is, the picture should answer your questions.

Hopefully it is clear that eating this meal as a child was great fun and if you think back you might even remember the very egg cup you used as a child, which is why many associate egg cups with childhoods.

In addition, egg cups actually go way back! An early silver egg cup was found in the ruins of Pompeii! In Europe, the egg cup has been used since at least the 15th century as part of breakfast, which technically makes it much older than the full English breakfast, which is actually heavily influenced by America and really exploded in popularity after the Second World War.