The Identifying Pottery Marks Forum

Identifying pottery marks is our (almost OCD) obsession. Join the fun right here! Scroll to the form just below to submit your own query/articles/photos either to start a new thread of your own (or to ask me to add your contribution to an ongoing query or thread). To ensure your post gets published (I vet each one), follow my rules.

Read the rules below. They are not draconian, it's just that, for the page to be found by search engines (and therefore help more people), there has to be a minimum number of words and some nice photos.

So take pleasure in telling your story and the tale of your china-finds and inheritances. Granny's shelf clutter might be ker-ching!

How Quickly Will My Submission Be Replied To and Get Online?

It may take up to a couple of months for me to look at and process your query in order to get it published online. I have occasional helpers but it's all volunteer work as the forum is a free resource. Identifying pottery marks is a time consuming (but fun) business.

help with tricky to identify pottery marks

There is a short-cut where you can get paid experts to help tell you the origin of your item- well worth it if you are in a hurry. Just click on the treasure chest image on the right column to find out more.

Remember, the whole premise of this website is I am the catylist for a community of like-minded people.

We tell the story of our wares whether sentimental trinkets or prized possessions. Above all, we like to help and be helped in our identifying pottery marks mission.



NOTE:- USE THE SEARCH ENGINE TOP RIGHT TO FIND IF YOUR QUERY IS ALREADY ANSWERED

Why don't we discuss values on the forums?

It's a can of worms and truly the domain of expert appraisers. There can be no other way, I'm afraid.

Mystery mark with archer's helmet, 6 crossed arrows and a cup

I explain in detail later on at the bottom of the page, and cite examples where it can go horribly wrong and create bad feelings, but in this area, never so apt is the saying 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

One of the main problems is the emotional attachment people have to their items. Sentimental value, to me, is the best and most highly prized value there can ever be. Far better than actual value

However, people look on retail replacement websites and think the retail prices they see there are the value they too would get for their item.

Not so!

Iron Mountain Stoneware backstamp

You would more than likely will get less than half the retail prices you see when you come to sell at auction, unless you have a good day at the office.

Also people see the buy-it-now prices on eBay and presume that price is the item's worth.

It isn't!

Again, that is a retail price, and check the completed listings to see how many of these lots remain unsold.


The very hard to identify Muller Volkstedt mark

Also, just because one item from a certain maker fetches a four-figure sum, it doesn't mean to say that all items from that maker do the same.

As I say, value is a can of worms, so we don't want to upset the friendly apple-cart of the forums, so we generally try discuss value elsewhere.

Nothing can be more upsetting to a person with an antique or vintage family item of great sentimental value to be told by some stranger that it's pretty much worthless.

Remember as well, that fashions very quickly change, and what was Gran's old shelf-tat one day is very trendy shabby-chic the next day.

Since I began these forums in 2006, a lot has changed, especially on the vintage tea-set front.

What goes around comes around and if we were to have been talking values on the forums, some of these discussions would begin to look very dated.

Identifying pottery marks, however, will never become dated.

Only if you have cast-iron eveidence of a price obtained at auction in the past couple of years for exactly the same item in exactly the same condition, exactly the same age, can you feel safe to start quoting values (then always cite the date).


BELOW IS THE LIST OF THE UNSOLVED MYSTERY POTTERY MARK QUERIES

Try to help if you can....

The Submission Rules

Due to the new rules regarding quality of content from a certain large search engine, each submission must at least 500 words, otherwise we are G-slapped (de-indexed by Google) for having 'thin content'. If you write 200 - 300 on the story of your wares, I can write the rest when I answering and identifying pottery marks queries.

However, if you write 400 - 500 words I can publish straight away and others might be able to help quicker than I can.

We will end up having two sections - one for answered queries and a second for pending identifying pottery marks needing answers.

Here is the form for you to submit your query or article:-

The Pottery Marks Public Forum

......where we all help each other out!

Not all your submissions get chosen for publication. You have to add some value to the site. Read below to find out what is required...

This is a public forum where we all help each other solve our pottery mark mysteries. We do not deal with values in this section, so please don't ask. Click treasure-chest image on the top right of the page to go to the valuations advice.

NOT ALL SUBMISSIONS ARE SELECTED FOR PUBLISHING. CONTRIBUTIONS ARE SELECTED FOR QUALITY (both in photos and content) - SO MAKE SURE YOURS STANDS A GOOD CHANCE BY FOLLOWING THE RULES!! (see below)

NOTE:
I have a backlog of about a month or so to get the pottery mark forum queries online – that is with me and some volunteer helpers (unpaid) working on them. Don’t forget I have about 4000 people come to my site every day. The only way to jump the queue is to use the expert fast-track where I get paid help in. These reports cost $15.67, as these guys are proper experts like you would see on the Antiques Roadshow. Fast track service here

An interesting exchange on why we don't discuss values on this site - we stick to identifying pottery marks!

A person who shall remain nameless asked for a professional valuation on a tableware service from a very obscure Japanese post-war maker.

She got very irate when the professional expert had a different view on her idea of the value which she had gleaned from the retailer site Replacements.com.

We don't want irate people on these identifying pottery marks forums, we want to keep it most friendly, so we deal with values separately. Just click on the treasure chest photo in the right column for values.

Here is my reply which attempted to calm the waters and explain about what 'fair market value' exactly means.

    "2 pointers for you...

    First, Replacements.com is not a good place to research the value of an item as they are retailers who ‘make the market’ by being prepared to hold stock for many many years (decades in some cases).

    Due to their system of selling, rarity within Replacements.com is not a benchmark for the general market outside when it comes to obscure brands.

    The real value of something is what an item will fetch at auction in general trading when a seller has the intent to sell (and not the commitment to hold stock for many years).

    When you have the set up of Replacement.com, you can use their pricing system, but, sadly, not until then (do you have 20 years and $10million to spare?)!

    For this reason, sale at auction, either on eBay or in offline auction rooms is the only true indicator of fair market value. This is why all expert appraisers, either on TV or within teams like my own, have an auction-house background (not a Replacements.com background!).

    Second, in the case of this very obscure Japanese maker, virtually uncollected anywhere, there is considered by experts no difference in the market value from pattern to pattern. There is no such thing as a benchmark market value for any Adline pattern, as there is no significant market.

    The items are so few that even one person wanting to build up a set in one pattern can skew results considerably and make inexperienced people think there is a market that doesn’t exist.

    Replacements.com hold little stock of any Adline pattern and, as I said, make up their prices as they go along according to their own private rules – not general market rules, so there can be no general market inferences from these anomalies and therefore the prices shown on Replacements.com for Adline can effectively be ignored in terms of the fair market value (it would be different for, say, Old Country Roses where they are not ‘making the market’). As my expert said, there has been only one offline sale in the West of Adline in the past 7 years (we hold records of all sales for that period in main city and provincial sales in the USA, Europe and UK).

    So valuations have to be made with the experience of a professional eye who has seen many services of this type (but not necessarily this brand or pattern) go through auction rooms time after time. There is a reasoning behind the prices obtained for this type of ware – and Replacement.com pricing in no way shape or form reflects this with regard to an obscure brand like Adline.

    If you are interested, my premium service of $29.99 gives you the breakdown of what each item is valued at and also gives a deluxe printable certificate in pdf format.

    Remember, valuations are matter of opinion and judgement, they only become born out by an actual sale (and, as I constantly keep being reminded by my expert colleagues – ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!’).

    Sales are greatly helped by a quality valuation certificate. No one is going to be fooled by retail prices shown on Replacements.com."

Identifying pottery marks is what we do in this section.

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