Pottery Marks Explained

Pottery marks sometimes can seem like a frighteningly huge subject to tackle, but never fear, your friendly online guide is here to help you through this maze of china marks! On this page there is a quick (OK, fairly quick) run-through of the basics of mark identification (it tells you how to look for clues to how these sometimes mad hieroglyphics work).

If you bookmark and follow this website, you can quickly get a 'feel' for the probabilities. Pottery mark encyclopaedias are very thick bamboozling expensive books showing countless thousands of marks, but the vast majority of these we are unlikely to ever see.

So most of the mileage here on this site is therefore about nailing those marks which are hard to identify but we are actually likely to be around in our homes.

Our User Generated Mystery Mark Forums

mystery marks identified M crown as Doric The forums are where all the 'grunt' work is done on this site.

People submit photos of a mark and we all pitch in trying to help identify it.

It is an ever growing resource for all to benefit from.

Get to know the mark forums and come back to use them often and participate whenever you can.

Important:- Use the search box top right of this page to search for your answer or scroll to the bottom of this page to browse.

So let's now talk about some general rules I have found on the 2000 or so forum posts we have answered so far on this site.


General Rules for Identifying China Marks

Ok, let's start thinking about this logically (Captain). It is obvious to those who care to read the clues that (my dear Watson) the two huge sources of fine china making (and therefore most likely to be in our homes or at garage sales and thrift stores - i.e. the number one suspects) are Germany and England.

These were the two main European giants and represent the bulk of the mystery marks submitted to this site. France, of course was a big player too, but for some reason, we have less queries about French china makers.

mark Gille or Vion & Baury (V & B)

This may be because Sevres (which has been clearly marked from the early days - so less mystery) held the royal license and therefore had a monopoly on production. All the while, hundreds of hardy entrepreneurial businessmen in England and Germany were carving out hard won businesses - against very real competition. Business was tough and china making expensive, so only the strongest survived in those countries.

Meanwhile in France, by the time the monopoly license was relaxed, only the area rich in all the natural resources for porcelain making had the wherewithal to forge a significant industry - namely Limoges (not a company but a locality).

There was some independent making going on in and around Paris, and that is where the mystery and obscurity comes in (See the forum listings on Vion et Baury and Samson, for example - use the search box, top right of this page).

The Clues Are Always There If You Know Where To Look

Taking into account the big picture explained above, an obscure mark on finer porcelains can therefore often indicate German origin (most often seen are late 19th century items - the height of production).

The average English firm was much later into fine porcelains than their German counterparts and the top band of better known English fine porcelain makers tend to have more easy to recognise markings anyway.

The English antique fine china is pretty much always bone china which is whiter, but perhaps not quite as hard European porcelain with a different method of applying and firing glazes.

classic meissen sword mark

A fancy old solid looking plate with no mark and a cracked old glaze over blue & white or Imari patterns is likely to be Staffordshire early to mid 1800's. Whereas the words 'bone china' indicates modern English - likely early to mid 20th century. The word Royal often suggest 20th century too, although the first warrant was as far back as the 1850's. You get the picture.....

More of these clues further down the page.

A Word of Caution About Oriental Porcelains

OK, a word of WARNING at this point...... About Chinese and Japanese pottery markings. In the Western mind, a pottery mark is all about identifying and promoting the maker. In the Eastern mind, I have come to discover, it is nothing if the sort.

andy's imari markApart from being impossible for an ordinary Westerner to read, the Oriental writing characters on an item quite often do not say much, if anything, about who made them. Most Oriental vases we are likely to have in our homes or come across in garage sales have a red square seal stamp on the base which when translated says "Great Qing Qianlong Period Make".

The Qing dynasty ruled in China from 1736-1795 and Qianlong was one of the Emperors. It is highly likely this vase was made in the 20th century. However, this apparently is not forgery, it is 'homage' and follows a long tradition. The Qing emperors themselves were doing their utmost to reproduce the most exquisite wares of the Ming dynasty (to prove themselves ever so cultured). Often these were marked with the old stamps of the Ming and only fine-eyed experts can tell what's what.

To complicate matters further, the Japanese sometimes made wares which looked like and are marked like Chinese porcelain. The Chinese is an older, more knowledgeable and valuable tradition than the Japanese. This is despite the popularity of Japanese Imari (Arita), Satsuma and Kutani. But ironically, when Japanese Imari became a popular export, the Chinese got in on the act and started exporting their own version of Imari in the 1700's.

"The very marks on the bottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibbering ecstasy" - Mark Twain

Continue reading below....

The trick of this section of the site is the visitor generated photos of mystery marks which need identifying. You upload and I post them up and we all try to answer as best we can. Many hundred of marks have been posted and answered. They are listed on the bottom of this page (use the in-house search engine top right of this page to look for your answer before posting yourself).

Then, if you still need individual help with identifying your wares, go here and follow instructions pottery & porcelain marks identification help page.

There is nothing like our 'help and be helped' forum anywhere else online and it is very popular with Google because of it. We have solved many mystery pottery marks together - the type of marks not covered in the regular reference books.

The forum is our 'snowballing' resource where, the more we all contribute together, the more Google sees us and lists us higher and so more of us get involved and the knowledge base gradually expands....


An interesting social media, eh? This is how the world works in the 21st century. We have invented the 'social media' for identifying pottery marks. You (the site visitors) invented this system, not me. I just went along with it and facilitated somewhere for us to store our knowledge! Thank you all.

But What About Value?

Now, we had to separate out the 'valuation' aspects from the identification forums because they started to get messy and go off topic. Identification is one thing, valuations are quite another. Appraisals need an expert impartial eye with no question of a vested interest creeping in.

So for valuation requests (and that covers a lot of people) we had to invent a quicker (paid for) service - the best online (I would say that because I run it - but it's true).

But Is My Stuff Worth Valuing?

For those not sure whether their items are worth the appraisal fee, I wrote a couple of different pages suggesting how you might do a bit of research on the value yourself first. You might have some fun with my free 'ready-reckoner price calculator'. I designed it in order to give you an idea of where your item might fit into a price range.

I also wrote a page giving a run-down of how you might use ebay and other resources to gauge the value of your stuff.

Also, at some point, you may want to go and have a quick look at this page:- Discovering the Value of Antiques. which mentions good places both online and offline I often use to research items.

Where Can I find This Pottery Mark Identification Forum?

You can browse the free pottery mark forums by scrolling down to the bottom of THIS PAGE and looking through the titles. Basically, the forums are comments and queries uploaded by you, the site visitors. There are many different forums on this website, but they are all situated at the bottom of the main pages like this one (the Pottery Marks section).

Otherwise, a quicker way is to use the site search box (on the top right column of every page) and trying a few different keyword searches.

If you have some china items with a mystery pottery marking you wish to identify, simply use the search box top right to see what information is already on the site.

A typical search phrase might be something like "k and crown".

On the lower parts of this pottery marks page, you will find a section where visitors have posted queries on the 'Public Forum' of this site. If I know the answer I will publish the reply completely FREE.

More Useful Rules of Thumb

Apart from the big picture things mentioned above, here are some more detailed clues.

Example: if you are looking at pottery marks in the US, 1890 is one of the key dates to remember. All china and porcelain marks had to show a country of origin on import goods after that date due to a new act.

A 'made in England' backstamp, therefore would be a very good indication of 20th Century wares for all you china sleuths out there!

Look For the Pottery Mark Clues!

pottery marks various

OK, here's how this works.....

Just look to the picture on the right to accompany each of these little clues that just might help you impress your friends and date your lovely old china.

If you see the typically British Lion & Unicorn of Royalty printed on a backstamp, don't get too exited that you are Sherlock Holmes-like in your deductions because this marking stems from way back the C19th and onwards (1800's, 1900's and C20th etc). Not much of a clue there then because that just about covers the whole history of UK ceramic markings.

Onwards and upwards to better mini-clues......

We often see the pattern name included on the backstamp of an English china mark. Now surely they didn't mark wares with this amount of detail in the early days of Staffordshire did they?

Think again, Dr Watson, as the firms in the UK were doing this transfer-print marking as early as 1810 (often swirling and grandiose looking - these are called 'cartouche marks'). People made these style of fancy markings showing the pattern name for over a span of a hundred years. Ouch, me needs more clues methinks.

Ah! I saw the word 'Royal' on a plate the other day and it made me think - surely there must be a time when this dishing out of warrants to posh dish makers was started. When did our nobility start ennobling our nicest crockery names? Well, after 1850 is the date you are looking for..... Yup, nothing says 'Royal' before 1850. Then only a few fab firms had the privilege of warrants yet some didn't bother to use it in their names (Wedgewood, Coalport, Paragon for example). Later in the 20th century, lot's of people started to use it when they shouldn't really have and we have an influx of Royal this's and that's. Use my A - Z listing of makers to check them out.

Now, I hear you ask "bone china"? Surely the term bone china must be as ancient as the hills? Not at all. Bone china was invented in 1799 (by Spode) but the term didn't come into general usage until the 20th century. I would love to know why and how, but I suspect it was some sort of cunning marketing ploy by someone like Colclough (the Mayor of Stoke whose mission it was to make fine porcelain tea sets for the masses). If you know, let me know and I will write it in here....

If you look to the picture on the above, you will see the twist of the rope into the shape of a Staffordshire knot. This stems from around 1850, as does the British diamond shaped kite registration mark. However, there was a fad for the Staffordshire knot mark in the later part of the 19th century. So see a Staffy knot and think late Victorian, generally speaking.

The trade-marks act came in 1862 so if you see the words 'Trade Mark' think late Victorian.

Similarly, the word 'Limited', or 'Ltd' was not used until the 1860's or thereafter.

....Whereas, the letter 'R N' (which stand for 'Registered Number' was later and didn't start until the 1880's.

All these tips are what pottery mark experts use as clues to identify the age of ceramic wares, and they should help you get a feel of it too. But do use the forums as they are intended as an easily searchable record of mystery pottery marks and I want it to be the biggest and best online..... with your help.


U.S China makers were much more loose on marking their wares with pottery marks to begin with. Wedgwood of England were the forerunners in systematically marking their china wares in the early 1800's.

The US makers began to follow suit eventually, bearing in mind many of the American wares started off as utilitarian in nature, only gradually becoming more and more decorative and ornate, culminating in the fabulous and award winning bone china of Knowles Taylor Knowles.

American art pottery is also a very collectible area - McCoy, Rookwood, Roseville, Red Wing, Stangl, Van Briggle, Newcomb College, Fulper, Weller to name but a few. All these companies have well recorded marks and we welcome discussions on these marks in our forum.

Lennox, Haviland, Gorham and Franciscan, to name but a few, are other American china makers with a fine pedigree and names to look out for.

Important American China Makers Backstamps

Some general guidelines for Lennox would be to look out for a green wreath pottery mark. This marking was used on wares between 1906 and 1930. 'Made in USA' was added in 1931.

This ceramic mark continued to be used until 1953 when the green color was changed to a gold. The gold wreath continues until present production.

To understand Haviland marks, you first have to understand the various Haviland companies who were entwined in a morass of competition, merger and re-merger.

On this site there is a special Haviland Dinnerware page which enlightens this subject and is reviewed for accuracy by one of the leading Haviland experts in the US.

Use my page alongside the Haviland ceramics marks page of china antique site 'China Collectibles' in order to get a feeling for the Haviland pottery markings.

I also admire the artistry of

Franciscan Pottery (see my listing here) and have found a fascinating website www.gmcb.com/franciscan which has published a 1962 marks catalog from the Franciscan archives - showing 20 pages of just about every trade-mark or backstamp Franciscan ever used.

Great European Porcelain

sevres porcelain marks The great European porcelain makers however, like Meissen and Sevres, did mark their wares from the very beginning (1710). The European porcelain marks were characterized by a hand painted symbol or initials.

The crossed swords of Meissen are taken from the coat of arms of Saxony. The 'latinized' double 'L' pottery markings of Sevres were taken from their patron French King Louis XV.

These European hand-painted markings can be more of a disadvantage than an advantage in identifying porcealin marks due to the fact that they are so easily copied.

Valuable Forgeries

However, remember this quirky fact - some of the forgeries and fakes, especially the older wares are highly prized collectibles in their own right and very valuable.

Look out particularly for the examples of Emile Samson's copies of Worcester, Meissen and Chelsea, made in the 1800's. There are also many French hard-paste reproductions of early soft-paste Sevres.

Similarly, in Dresden they are adept at making replicas of early Meissen - all signed with pottery markings made to look suspiciously similar to those of the true originals.

Valuing Your China Wares

pottery marks - stack

It may well be that you have a set of marks you need to identify for valuation purposes and you need further help.

For a full explanation of all the resources on this site go here:-

Value of Antiques & Vintage China - Identification Help Page

In reality, there are two jobs to do if you seriously need to value your china set, both of which this website will help you with:

The first is to identify the specific pottery mark and once that is done, the second job is to get an idea of the value.

If you are having trouble identifying a specific makers mark, scroll to the bottom of the page and look to see if it is already one of the marks queries by subscribers to the Newsletter see here).

The China Manufacturers A to Z guide here on this site should give you the information you need about most notable makers. If you can't find a listing on your wares, check with the site search box at the top of this or the homepage.

Summary

Handwritten symbols and initials are more than likely European porcelain (valuable!). No markings on plain old looking utilitarian looking wares can mean old (valuable!). Lack of the words 'Royal' and 'Bone China' on English famous makers wares can suggest very old (very valuable).

More on IDENTIFYING POTTERY & PORCELAIN MARKS

CHINA PATTERN IDENTIFICATION ....more

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