British Registration Marks & Numbers:

Introduction

On some products you will sometimes find a diamond-shaped mark, the British Registration mark, which was included into the mold of an item. Although the majority of registered designs were taken out by English manufacturers, some were registered by foreign companies or their agents and it must not be presumed that all objects bearing this device are of an English manufacture. Note that this mark only states when a specific piece or design was registered, it does not indicate the production date of the item. It is fascinating though how long this type of marking lasted, especially for ceramics - I believe nearly every collector has his own story to tell about completely unreadable versions, either through shrinkage, the decoration or thickly applied glaze.

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.

British Registration Marks And Numbers:

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:

British Registration Marks And Numbers:

The Numbering System

Starting in January 1884 this system was replaced by an easier system, solely consisting of registration numbers prefixed with 'Rd' or 'Rd No.'. Here is a list of numbers for reference, where the number shown was the first number issued in that year.