Perfect Pieces Specialists in British Pottery

Understanding Pottery Marks


Pottery marks are a rich and often-ignored source of information on a piece, providing savvy buyers and collectors with a surprising amount of information about the identity, age and manufacturer of a piece.

Of course, we've all had a quick glance at the bottom of a vase or pot, seen a pottery name and recognised it - but in many cases there is a lot more information available if you know how to recognise it.

Types of Mark

Some of the types of pottery mark that you will come across most often are:

Shelley printed pottery mark Incised Denby pottery mark Handpainted Troika Pottery Mark
Examples of printed, incised and handpainted pottery marks.

What Do They Tell Me?

Here's how you should 'read' the base of a piece of pottery.

  1. Look for the manufacturer's pottery mark. This will tell you who made the piece and provide an approximate date range to work with - marks were often changed over the years. Remember, while pottery marks are usually on the base, with studio pottery they can often be at the bottom edge of one side, instead.
  2. Consider any painted markings - these are most commonly pattern numbers or artists' markings.
  3. Look for impressed or incised numbers - these might well be shape numbers.

Early Poole Pottery Vase Truda Carter CO Pattern, Clarice Heath, Shape 203 Pottery Marks
Example of incised shape number (203), stamped pottery mark (Poole England) and handpainted pattern code (CO) and artist mark.

How Do I Find Out What It All Means?

Of course, no one goes around with a database of all of this information in their heads - there's no shame in looking things up occasionally. To get started, have a look in our online Pottery Marks Guide - genuine close-up photos of the pottery marks on hundreds of pieces we've sold over the years.

The definitive book on the subject is the Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks by Geoffrey A. Godden - but it's a weighty tome and you may be better off with one of the pocket-sized guides that are available from Millar's and the like.

Trying to identify pattern and shape numbers and artists' marks is harder - quite often, the only source of information will be a specialist book on the pottery concerned.

A thorough Google search can sometimes also turn up something useful, as can a search of completed results on eBay .

Pottery marks are a complex subject but they can become your friend and ally once you learn to understand them. A little patient research often goes a long way, and you will soon become familiar with the ins and outs of the potteries you are interested in.

We hope this article has provided some useful pointers - as always don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or comments you'd like to share with us.

Best Wishes,

Perfect Pieces

P.S. You may also be interested in two of the 'How-To' guides we've recently published on our website:

Newsletters

Here you'll find a list of our past newsletters. They feature information on different potteries, some of our featured stock and information on antique fairs and general news from the antique and collectors world!

Happy reading!