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British Registration Marks

British registration marks come in three different forms, two older diamond-shaped designs and a newer and much simpler registration number; all three versions can be found either embedded in the mould of an item or simply stamped on the item itself. As the name suggests, a 'registration mark' only indicates when a particular item or design was registered, not when it was made.

While the majority of registered designs were indeed taken out by English manufacturers, some were registered by foreign companies or their agents. This explains why this page is included on a site dedicated to German and related marks: some German manufacturers did indeed register designs in England, so sooner or later you may come across a German item with such a registration mark.

Diamond-Shaped Marks

As mentioned above, there are two versions of the diamond-shaped mark. If you see one, look at the lower part of the mark: a type 1 mark (1841 to 1867) has a number on it, while a type 2 mark (1868 to 1883) has a letter. Once you have identified the type of mark, the rest is easy to read.

The type of material was stated by a Roman numeral class number in the top circle (I for metal, II for wood, III for glass and IV for all kinds of ceramics). In the four corners of the diamond itself you will find four different numbers or letters. In the pictures shown here, the placeholders used are P for package number, Y for the year, M for the month and D for the day of registration. In direct comparison one can easily recognize that the fields P and M as well as D and Y were exchanged in the newer (type 2) version.

Type 1 (1841 - 1867)

Used 1841 to 1867, placeholders Y-D-P-M clockwise from the top.

Type 2 (1868 - 1883)

Used 1868 to 1883, placeholders D-Y-M-P clockwise from the top.

The wildcard P (package number) is sometimes referred to as "bundle number" or "manufacturer number", although the latter is not quite correct. You need to know a little about the methods of filing and storing documents at the registry at that time to understand the true meaning of this code: all the registrations of a day were filed in a "package" or "bundle", i.e. they were wrapped and stored together, while the contents (each registration and registrar from the package) were written down in the filing book. In some (rare) cases, all registrations on a particular day were filed by a particular registrar, but this does not mean that a particular number code is keyed to the name of a particular registrar. In other words, this part of the registration information is irrelevant to collectors or people who simply want to find out more about their item, as it is merely a filing reference.

Diamond-Shape Mark Codes

Here is a table showing the known month and year codes; note that the month code letters were identical in both mark type periods. Also note the two exception warnings below, which should at least show that the system was not foolproof.

Exceptions (1841-1867): Between 1857-09-01 and 1857-09-19 (19 days) the letter 'R' was used; during 1860-12-03 and 1860-12-31 (28 days) the letter 'K' was used. In both cases the clerks simply forgot to change the letters.

Exceptions (1868-1883): Between 1878-03-01 and 1878-03-06 (6 days) the letter 'W' was used for the year instead of 'D' and 'G' was used for the month in place of 'W' as the clerks had confused the respective year/month codes.

Numerical Marks

From 1884-01-01, registrations were represented by a much simpler type of marking, consisting only of the actual registration number preceded by "Rd" or "Rd №.". The following list of numbers is a fairly good reference, the number shown was the first number issued in January of a given year.

This system was continued until Monday, the 1989-07-31 and then restarted with a new base number on the next day, Tuesday, 1989-08-01.

(*) = Last day and number of the old numbering system.
(**) = First day and number of the new numbering system.

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