Gold Six

In 1965, Susan Williams-Ellis produced another of her mix and match coffee set designs. Named Gold Six, it was a collection of six different abstract patterns all in the same colour palette of black, brown and gold on gloss white items. Susan initially designed the motifs from shapes cut from paper to give a more hand-made look, although the finished products look very sleek and tend to veer away from her intended idea.

The six patterns are:
GOLD CHECK - small diamonds, squares & circles
GOLD SIGN - mystical symbols in black against medallions of brown & gold
GOLD RULE - elongated triangular shapes & ovals
GOLD SIGNAL - half moon & rectangular shapes
GOLD SECTION - melon shaped geometric pattern
GOLD FLAME - abstract comet design surrounded by thorns

Although this design was limited to coffee sets, when the design were retired in 1968 the remaining transfers were used on Drum shaped tea and coffee services in the early 1970's.
This daring set of abstract designs was marketed as either a complete set of the same designs or what is known as a harlequin set, that being one of each of the six designs as a set.
The design was expensive to reproduce and suffered from over enthusiastic cleaning, causing the gold to be rubbed. Items from this range with bright and shiny motifs are very sought after and command high prices.