June 10, 2013

Cracking the Code

I was at an auction this past weekend, and I bought several lots of old blue and white china. I am always checking the marks to see who made the piece, when it was made and where it was made. I use a site called The Potteries, which is out of Stoke-on-Trent in England. This is where most of the English china, porcelain and pottery was made for several hundred years.

Each pottery has its own marks, and as owners and times changed, so did the marks.

Generally, if you can pick one or two words out of the back mark, you can find out all sorts of things. The mark above has the maker, the pattern the date of manufacture and the type of material. The maker is Charles Meigh, the pattern is Verenese, the dates are embossed in the clay and then glazed, so they’re hard to read, and the material is improved stone china. Then when I look at The Potteries site, I can find out more.image

I can now discern that the piece was made between 1835 and 1849, by a process of elimination: there’s a CM in the mark and the Improved Stone China, so that leaves the piece as being made in the 14 years between 1835 and 1849.  If it had either of the two other marks, I’d have dated it later.

Some china can be dated even more specifically than that. This is a mark from a piece I also bought on Saturday.

There are several clues here: Wedgwood & Co. The & Co. differentiates in from just Wedgwood according to years and some other factors. The unicorn also differentiates is as export-ware – mainly to the USA. Melton is the pattern, which is pretty simple. But what do all of the other marks mean?  There are lots of clues here.code

So, using the guide, I can tell this is ceramic, made on January 30, 1883, and it was the 12th bundle made that day. There is a list of what each letter and number means. However, there are actually two lists, as they ran out of letters, so had to start again, switching places of the numbers and letters. The first set of marks were used from 1842-1867 and the second set from 1868-1883.

Here are some of the other marks on pieces I won.

H.A. & Co, Oriental pattern, dating between 1861 and 1880

W.E. Corn, dating from about 1905, in the Ormonde pattern.

These pieces of flow blue are from the ship, Lucania, which sailed in the late 1800’s.

Furnivals, later bought by Wedgwood, dating 1890 to 1913.

Furnivals, from the same piece as above

W. Adam & Sons, stone china, pattern name is in the shield, dates between 1835 and 1855. I love the face in the wave! Do you see it?

To learn about English silver hallmarks, please click here for a post I did about them several years ago.

20 comments:

  1. Meg This is very interesting the markings vary so much;however you really know what you are bidding on!

    xoxo
    Karena
    Art by Karena
    Giveaway from Splendid Sass

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    1. Too much credit! I found out about all of this after the lot had been hammered down!

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  2. Meg, is there a good online source for identifying blue and white china that does not have any marking?

    In the 80s, I bought at auction a box of teacups and saucers, obviously quite old. The blue pattern is not very sharp, and there are flowers and a peacock on each cup. They are rimmed in gold. I would love to know more about them.

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    1. That's much harder to do. I'd start with the pattern and put a term like "flowers and peacock" into the search on The Potteries site. That may lead you to a pattern name. If the pattern's not sharp, it might be something like flow blue, which has blurrier patterns than later transferware. Ebay also has some good tutorials, and you might find something there.

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    2. Thanks! (My post today, btw, is a vintage photo look at Baltimore's Washington Monument and Mt. Vernon Place.)

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  3. Very Informative Meg. The Potteries site is an excellent source. Thanks for the info. Hope you are well!
    Di
    xxxx

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    1. I use that site all of the time, and have it bookmarked!

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  4. this is so very interesting! Im happy I stumbled upon this today and pinned it. Thanks and love your finds.
    xo Nancy
    Powellbrowerhome.com

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  5. fabulous and informative - great finds!

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    1. I did really at the auction on Saturday, more pix coming.

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  6. Cracking the code is there a code for bloggers? it seems it has been cracked or hacked. so many blogs I follow er used to follow as, well-- they have stopped boo hoo. I guess they out grow blogging. Or the positive web presence leads to a job a paying job and the blog morphs to being east coast style editor or something???

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  7. You are so informative! As always. I'm book marking the Potteries site.

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  8. Hi Meg,
    Super information....Can we see that faces of the plates next post? I love blue and white and maybe it's time to pull out my collection?
    Thanks,
    Mary

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  9. grand information + have a wonderful week. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com

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  10. I think that face in the waves is a lion--as drawn by someone who'd never seen one. But the dishes are great. In the old days I would have passed up pieces with that kind of stained crazing, but after learning the hydrogen peroxide trick from Reggie and cleaning up a bunch of disreputable-looking 200-year old coffee cans, I would have been all over those. You made quite a haul.

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    1. SG... i love the pictures of animals and other things drawn by people who've never seen them. There was a wall in Cardiff with animals, and sometimes you had to guess reallllly hard to figure out what a particular animal was.

      I will have to try Reggie's recipe!

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