How to Decode Pottery Marks by Dr. Lori

[Music] dr laurie here the phd antiques appraiser we're going to talk about pottery marks today i'm going to give you the basics so we can understand about pottery marks everybody says oh you know look at the mark look at the mark look at the mark i want you to understand what the folks who are putting the mark on the piece of pottery are doing and that's going to help you understand the mark and identify an antique and valuable piece of pottery okay so here's what we've got this particular piece is a piece of wedge wood it only says wedge wood on the bottom and this indicates that this particular piece is made before 1891. oh well what happens in 1891 a customs law is enacted in 1891 that says everything that gets imported has to be marked with its country of origin oh this doesn't have its country of origin so we know how old the piece is based on what's there at the mark or what's missing from the mark the next piece that i want you to think about is i want you to think about this particular piece which is a piece of noritaki this piece says japan on the bottom indicating where the piece was made okay made in japan so the fact that it's made in japan and that japan is marked on this particular piece of noritaki right in english indicates this piece is made after 1891 following the laws get it so if you look at these pieces you're going to start to say there's a lot of information there about dates even though it doesn't say i made after 1891. on your piece of pottery right then you're gonna have american-made pieces pieces like this piece of blue ridge pottery the blue ridge people put all kinds of information on their particular pieces it tells you that it's southern potteries it tells you that it's blue ridge it tells you it's made in the usa it even gives you a mold or inventory type of number the size of the mold the shape of the mold that that can also be on some of these particular pieces and to make things more confused some pieces of blue ridge for example a very very popular circa 1930s ceramic some pieces of this dinnerware don't have a mark on them at all so to make things a little more difficult then you're going to see pieces like this one a goble figurine this particular one from the fryer tuck series you probably are familiar with gobel pieces because they make the famous hummel figurines well this particular piece has the characteristic v and b global mark right that says i was made in the german porcelain factory of global or make these earthenware ceramics and then it says w germany so now you got to know a little history guys now you've got to know that basically we start to mark pieces w germany after west germany and east germany are of course split up that idea where you're going to have again a world war ii or a piece that's made after 1945 when we have east germany and west germany so now you know this particular piece is a w germany piece you know where it's made but you also know when it's made just from the mark colors are the next point about marks all different types of colors all different types of marks a piece of lennox made in the united states this particular piece of lenox has a gold mark lennox also marks its ceramics it's porcelains it's china with a black mark the famous balik company out of galway ireland they mark their pieces depending on the time period with a different colored mark sometimes you're going to see a black bleak mark sometimes you're going to see a green bleak mark and lennox is the same way so some of the pieces early pieces of linux might have a black p black mark black lennox and some of the pieces might have a gold lennox mark like this one so there's lots of things that can help you tell about a pottery mark many things that you can start to learn from with respect to pottery marks if you have a piece of pottery and you're really not sure and you can't identify the mark you don't really know where to go you can always come to my website you can send a picture of your object to me the object and then of course the mark and i can help you with an online appraisal you can bring it to one of my int appraisal events and we can i can also identify it for you there [Music]

Channel: Dr. Lori

Views: 220,768

Keywords: collectable (Industry), collectibles, antiques, dr. lori, Auction Kings (TV Program), Antique (Taxonomy Subject), Appraiser (Profession), Pottery (Collection Category)

Id: HjN0Em62LIc

Length: 4min 22sec (262 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 06 2013