Royal Vale Backstamps

by Dawn
(Nevada USA)

A note on Royal Vale backstamps:

Thank you, Peter, for your interesting explanations of the Royal Vale bone china on the main page.

I am a china collector myself and am getting into the Royal Vale make. I have been doing some research and have come up with these facts (at least I think they are facts - please correct me if I'm wrong!).

In the period when Coloclough's was officially known as HJ Colclough (1897-1937) the 'Vale' marks were first used when the firm expanded to the new 'Vale' works in Longon Circa 1908. The backstamp you would see in the pre-1913 period was the 'Vale China' mark.

Around and inside a black oval line, in all black lettering:

GENUINE
BONE CHINA
Vale
MADE IN LONGTON
ENGLAND

Then, from 1913, when the company won official Royal approval, the new ROYAL Vale mark sometimes had a distinctive crown (above) and sometimes not, for example:

The crown mark came at the top of the backstamp (as used on Colclough's 'lion inside a globe mark'), the same oval shape, as above, then there was as follows in all black lettering:

ROYAL
C Vale B (the letters either side of the Vale mark vary e.g. they could say B 3 - and are an identifying mark)
BONE CHINA
MADE IN ENGLAND (outside the oval on the bottom)


Sometimes there was just a very plain black 'stamp' mark with no crown and no oval line design saying:

ROYAL VALE
COLCLOUGH
LONGTON
ENGLAND
BONE CHINA (with no oval line at all)

Just to confuse you more there is yet another Royal Vale backstamp which does not specify 'Ridgway' but is from the later Ridgway era no doubt. It has the same distinctive crown as the Ridgway era 1953-1964 which is different from the early Coloclough era (see the reference on the main Royal Vale page on this site). The tea cups have the same distinctive Ridgway form and the lettering is a similar font.

The back stamp says the following:

Crown logo at top, then:
BONE CHINA (oval shaped writing, but no actual oval line)
F 37 8 (varying identifying mark)
ROYAL VALE (In RED fancy font)
MADE IN ENGLAND (oval shaped writing)

I have seen this marked on a set which bore a remarkable resemblance the the Colclough 'Amoretta' pattern, but was 'Royal Vale' from the Ridgway era (but not marked as Ridgway). This was on sale in Canada, so maybe there were some export issues with backstamps etc.

The other alternative was that it was from the era after 1964 when Ridgway was sold off to Wedgwood and Royal Vale remained with Allied Potteries (Pearsons). This non-Ridgway era of Royal Vale would have continued on at least until the merger (takeover) with Doulton in 1972. However, I'm just guessing because I don't actually know. If anyone out there knows for sure, please contribute your knowledge.

Thanks the Peter for his website, and for giving us the opportunity to share our enthusiasms.


Dawn