Maker’s marks is as it sounds a mark put on any item to identify the producer. It may be a logo, or it may be just in plain text.
For jugs this mark is usually placed underneath.
There are lots of jugs to be found without any markings, and I don’t know why as this is an excellent way for any maker to advertise for themselves.
There’s no problem collecting jugs without ever giving a thought to the maker or the marks they put on them. However you will soon come to find that similar looking jugs can demand quite different prices depending on who made it.
These marks can also be an indicator of the jugs age or at least periode of most likely production as makers update and change their logo whenever they change ownership or just want to update their image.
On older jugs, pre 1900, it’s not unusual to find a design number or an icon, a lot like that used by silver smiths, making dating more accurate.
For some reason maker’s marks are rarely found on jugs intended for the US market. These are more commonly marked with information on the product, the maker or importer.
As with any design, the good and functional ones get copied. Back in the late 1800’s the largest and best known pottery makers did what they could to protect their designs. Even so, some of them blatantly copied others design even down to detail. Port Dundas is an example of a company that didn’t shy away from directly copying and practically basing their business on designs from Royal Doulton.
Jugs from before WWII are often found in both shapes and graphic designs unique to a single maker and a specific brand. But somewhere down the road the copyright law seems to have been forgotten in the world of advertising jugs. Jugs of exactly the same shape can be seen from several makers, sometimes even for the same brand and with identical graphics.
Any iformation on why and how this worked from the 1950’s and up until today is appreciated.
There are lots of pages to be found regarding pottery markings. However most of them concentrate on the antique periode before 1900. These pages are also on pottery in general, very few are on the adverticing subject. Any area where there could be clay found in the ground seems to have grown a substancial pottery business from the 1700’s to late 1800’s, like Stoke, Stafforshire and Derby. There were hundreds of them at each location, but only a few involved in making jugs and other items for advertising purposes so the general pages can be a bit overwhealming.
Today there are only a handfull of manufacturers of advertising jugs left, and even on these it’s not easy to find on-line information.
I will only list marks that are found on my own jugs. Company information is mostly found on-line and dating is estimated based on this information.
Any corrections or additions are appreciated.
