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Lenox Spice Village

Twenty-four porcelain houses, one per spice, mailed monthly from 1989. Their story and how to spot an original.

The short answer

The Lenox Spice Village is a set of 24 hand-painted porcelain spice jars, each a different little house with its spice painted on the front. Lenox launched it in 1989 by mail order, sending one house a month for two years, and discontinued it in 1993. Lenox reissued the set in 2024.

Item Details

Type: Spice jars, set of 24
Category: Tableware & Dinnerware
Designer: Lenox in-house design
Maker / Manufacturer: Lenox
Model / Series: Spice Village
Date Range: 1989–1993, reissued 2024
Style: Storybook cottages, mixed styles
Region of Origin: Taiwan, for US brand Lenox
Materials: Hand-painted fine porcelain

What we spotted

Twenty-three Lenox Spice Village house-shaped spice jars, labeled Garlic, Dill, Saffron, Paprika and more, on a wooden rack

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Found by a Tocuro user. Their original photo.

1
Cinnamon is missing. Only 23 houses stand here. The top shelf holds five jars, and Cinnamon, the 24th spice, is absent.
2
A turret on Saffron. Saffron's house has a round corner tower under a conical terracotta roof, one of several turreted designs.
3
A peaked wooden rack. The houses sit in a hardwood rack with a gabled top. Original subscribers got the rack before any jars.
4
A green roof on Tarragon. Tarragon's bright green roof stands out on the bottom shelf among lilac, peach and blue rooftops.

What is the Lenox Spice Village?

Lenox, the American porcelain company founded in 1889, developed the Spice Village in-house to tap a growing interest in home collectibles. Magazine ads sold it as a subscription at $14.50 a month.

Each house stands about 3 inches tall and was hand-painted in Taiwan. In the 1990s the village spread into planters, mugs, dinnerware and a pasta canister.

“Take a pinch of ginger from a Georgian townhouse. Parsley from a Queen Anne Villa.”
— From a Lenox magazine ad

Why is it special?

A thrift-store video brought it back. In 2022 a shopper found the whole set in a thrift store, and her TikTok passed 6 million views. A line dropped in 1993 reached a new generation, so a nearly complete rack like this one draws attention.
The reissue made the base matter. Lenox announced a Second Edition in August 2024 at $15 a jar, close to the 1989 price, and it sold out twice. Because the new houses look almost identical, the mark underneath is now the quickest way to date a set.

Meet the neighbours

Garlic

Lilac mansard roof, three dormers and a red door

Pepper

Wide blue roof with its label arched over the door

Parsley

Blue-green roof with a tall corner turret

Onion

Golden roof with a turret on the right

How to tell an original from the 2024 reissue

Check	Original, 1989–1993	Second Edition, 2024
Base mark	'The Lenox Spice Village', © LENOX 1989	Stamp reads 'Second Edition'
Mark color	Warm yellow gold	Paler champagne
Condition	Gold mark worn, base shows age	Crisp, near-perfect finish
How it was sold	Monthly subscription, rack first	Full set, 6-jar sets or singles