About This Site:

How It All Started

Cutting a long story short I will just say that my girlfriend lost her mother during the last months of the year 2003, leaving a house full of things that had to be evaluated and sold so we could let the house. Around Christmas 2003 we got help from a friend who sold things through eBay, but we had a few problems with some of the porcelain plates that were intended for sale which was understandable as we both had nothing to do with porcelain at all. Taking a glance at the plates I faintly remembered something my mother had mentioned a way back and after further research on the internet we could verify the mystery pieces as belonging to the first items manufactured by Rosenthal. A few beers later I promised to put together a few marks as an easy reference guide for future sales, but soon afterwards discovered that it would be quite a problem especially after stumbling over the site www.porcelainsite.com, because reading their pages opened my eyes and gave me a lot to think about.

After checking dozens of pages just listing marks or manufacturers, I came to the conclusion that it would only make sense to write about marks knowing the complete history of the manufacturer behind it as many questions could simply be answered just by checking the timeline. As I had to start somewhere, I took all data on the facility in the town of Blankenhain in Thuringia and listed everything I could find elsewhere in chronological order. During that process I also found out that the 'Weimar Porzellan' company still existed. Being born in England and living in Germany for over thirty years clearly paid out as I took my compiled work and mailed it to the company, asking them to verify it. They where pleased to help and after a few days all the data was verified and my first real porcelain mark page was ready.

I started to participate on different discussion boards and found a few questions on marks that brought me to Max Roesler. Information was rare, so I started digging up data, resulting in the complete history of this manufacturer up to the bitter end, which was very interesting as it actually showed me that even as an absolute beginner you can be able to find answers to questions that had other people stumped for quite some time. Scanning internet pages and phoning around, I managed to help a lot of people with questions on marks and manufacturers. But the real breakthrough came after visiting eBay.com's own Pottery, Glass & Porcelain board. Not only did I find a lot of answers (and even more questions), I also found lots of friends. And it should not stay unmentioned that some of them are responsible for this site still being here, as they helped me through some major problems, some of which were not site-related. So this site is also a huge 'Thank you!' for all those great people out there ...

I have learned so much about porcelain marks that I really can say it has developed into an obsession and as you are reading this, you can see where my crazy idea led to in the end. My former girlfriend and I have now long parted, but the site itself grows and grows, helping hundreds of people each month. But there are things that have me stumped, too - just take a look at my constantly growing 'Unidentified Marks' section: perhaps YOU have a book or a site reference which could help.

Have fun,

Christopher S. Marshall

Dortmund, Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany