| Staffordshire, England has been the hub of a vast production of English china and pottery for hundreds of years. Consequently, there's a massive choice of English ceramics, china, porcelain and pottery available to the collector, however, the down side is that dating pieces can be tricky at best, so here are some pointers, that should help you do just that!\n\n\nThere are several marks that can be found on antique, vintage and retro English Pottery that you can use to get an approximate date of production. \n\nThe following points are of use when dating pottery:\n\n- Marks can be incised, impressed, printed or hand painted - this an be an important feature to take note of if attempting to detect a forgery or reproduction in rare and valuable pieces.\n\n- Many of the larger producers of pottery and china, such as Royal Worcester and Mintons, had their own unique dating systems.\n\n- Inclusion of the word 'England' in marks surgests a date after 1891, although some manufacturers added the word before this date. \n\n- Made in England denotes a date after 1921, although again some manufacturers added this prior to that time. \n\n- Marks incorporating the word 'Limited', or the abbreviations 'Ltd', 'Ld', etc., indicate a date after 1861, and most are much later.\n\n- Printed marks incorporating the Royal Arms are generally of 19th or 20th century date.\n\n- Printed marks including the name of the pattern generally date after 1810.\n\n- Incorporation of the words 'Trade Mark' in a mark indicates a date subsequent to 1862.\n\n- Inclusion of the phrases 'Bone China', 'English Bone China', etc., indicates a 20th-century date.\n\n- Inclusion of description such as "Ye Olde Willow" "Genuine Staffordshire Ware", etc... usually indicate modern copies\n\n- It was the US President William McKinley, who introduced the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, this imposed tariffs on imports. It was a requirement of this Act that all imports carry the name of their country of manufacture. This resulted in pottery and china marks such as Bavaria, England and Nippon - demonstrating the country of manufacture. In 1921 the Act was amended to require the term "Made in" preceding the country of origin.\n\n- Registered marks were used to identify the date of production from 1842 to 1883, these are a diamond shaped printed or incised mark on the pottery. The diamond shaped marks contain letters and numbers in each corner, an these identify year, month, day, parcel number and class of production. The position of the information on the mark depends on the year of production.\n\n- Registered numbers were used to date pottery from 1884 until 1965. The registration number was represented by the abbreviation RN or Rgd No. (for Registered Number) followed by the dating numerals.\n\n- The registration number marks provide a date when the piece first went into production, but the piece could have been produced at any time after that date, although many companies re-numbered their pieces when a new series was produed, even when it was a repeat of an existing pattern. \n\n- The registration numbers for the period 1884 - 1965 are as follows:\n\n1884 - 1, 1885 - 19756, 1886 - 40480, 1887 - 64520, 1888 - 90483, 1889 - 116648, 1890 - 141273, 1891 - 163767, 1892 - 185713, 1893 - 205240, 1894 - 224720, 1895 - 246975, 1896 - 268392, 1897 - 291241, 1898 - 311658, 1899 - 331707, 1900 - 351202, 1901 - 368154, 1902 - 385180, 1903 - 403200, 1904 - 424400, 1905 - 447800, 1906 - 471860, 1907 - 493900, 1908 - 518640, 1909 - 535170, 1910 - 552000, 1911 - 574817, 1912 - 594195, 1913 - 612431, 1914 - 630190, 1915 - 644935, 1916 - 653521, 1917 - 658988, 1918 - 662872, 1919 - 666128, 1920 - 673750, 1921 - 680147, 1922 - 687144, 1923 - 694999, 1924 - 702671, 1925 - 710165, 1926 - 718057, 1927 - 726330, 1928 - 734370, 1929 - 742725, 1930 - 751160, 1931 - 760583, 1932 - 769670, 1933 - 779292, 1934 - 789019, 1935 - 799097, 1936 - 808794, 1937 - 817293, 1938 - 825231, 1939 - 832610, 1940 - 837520, 1941 - 838590, 1942 - 839230, 1943 - 839980, 1944 - 841040, 1945 - 842670, 1946 - 845550, 1947 - 849730, 1948 - 853260, 1949 - 856999, 1950 - 860854, 1951 - 863970, 1952 - 866280, 1953 - 869300, 1954 - 872531, 1955 - 876067, 1956 - 879282, 1957 - 882949, 1958 - 887079, 1959 - 891665, 1960 - 895000, 1961 - 899914, 1962 - 904638, 1963 - 909364, 1964 - 914536, 1965 - 919607.\n\n\n\nPlease note that this information has been obtained from a variety of sources, and it is to the best of our knowledge correct. However, Steptoes Dog does not accept responsibility regarding its accuracey, or any adverse occurances, damage or injury resulting from the use of this information.\n\n |
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