Novelty plates are plenty common, so we don’t really pay much attention when we see a new one come out unless they bring unique function like the Pancake Plate. The Fifty United Plates, however, do the novelty thing in a big way, recreating the shape of all 50 American states as scale porcelain plates that can interlock like jigsaw puzzles and form a map of the United States in your dining room table.
Made by Corbe Company, each plate is cut to form the exact shape of one state, so every single one varies in size and mold. States that aren’t fully adjoined (e.g. there’s an island off the coast) are recreated in full, too, so they come in multiple parts (e.g. Hawaii comes as five small plates to represent each island).
When put together, the Fifty United Plates measure 10 x 4 feet (including Alaska and Hawaii), so it’s quite a big set that should make for great presentation across one of those long dinner tables you see in rich people’s homes. Each plate features walled edges, with an interior depth of 1.375 inches, so you can use them as regular serving plates, baking trays, or whatever else you do with tableware in the kitchen. Yep, you can make a giant cake in the shape of the entire United States, with each slice cut to the form of one state — pretty awesome.
Each one is CNC-machined to ensure it’s cut exactly to the same shape as the actual state. The biggest plate, Texas, measures 24 x 25 inches, while the smallest, Rhode Island, is a tiny 1.5 x 1.5 inches.
The Fifty United Plates is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. Pledges to order plates of two individual states start at $140. The full set costs $5,600.