British Registration Marks & Numbers:

Introduction

The British registration mark is a diamond-shaped mark which was mostly included in the mold of an item, however it can also be found as stamped version on some item bases. As the name implies a 'registration mark' only states when a specific piece or design was registered, it does not indicate the production date of the item. While the majority of registered designs were indeed taken out by English manufacturers some were registered by foreign companies or their agents and so one must not presume that all objects bearing this device are automatically of English manufacture. Which of course explains why this page is included on a website featuring German and related marks: a few German manufacturers did register designs in England and so one can stumble across the one or other German item with such a registration mark.

Reading such a mark is simple: the type of material was stated by a roman numeral class number in the top circle representing 1 for metal, 2 for wood, 3 for glass and 4 for ceramics. In the four corners of the diamond you will find four different numbers or letters. In the pictures shown here, the place holders used are P for parcel number or manufacturer, Y for the year, M for the month and D for the day of registration.

Version used between 1841 and 1867.

Version used between 1868 and 1883.

Registration Mark Keys

As can be seen in the previous two pictures, the newer version shows the fields P and M as well as D and Y exchanged against each other. Here is a table showing the known year codes; the code letters for the month were the same in both periods:

The Numbering System

Starting in January 1884 this system was replaced by an easier one that consisted merely of registration numbers prefixed with 'Rd' or 'Rd №.'. The following list of numbers is a pretty good reference, the number shown was the first number issued in January of a given year.