Spotting Reproductions in Antique Ceramics

There is a particular disappointment in the moment you get an antique ceramic home, turn it over in better light, and realise the mark, the glaze and the foot rim are all telling you it was made in 1974. Reproductions are everywhere in the ceramics trade, and they range from honest Victorian revival pieces, which have their own modest market, to deliberate twentieth-century fakes designed to part you from your money. The good news is that most of them give themselves away in three places: the glaze, the foot rim and the printed mark. With a loupe, a small torch and the right reference book, you can learn a great deal in the five minutes you have before a dealer starts hovering.

Why So Many Copies Are in Circulation

From the 1880s onwards, and again in the 1920s and the 1970s, British and continental potteries produced large quantities of wares modelled closely on earlier pieces. Some were sold openly as reproductions and some carried a discreet addition to the mark, but plenty were not. Staffordshire figures, blue and white transfer-printed tablewares, Toby jugs and Chinese-style porcelain have all been copied extensively. None of this makes a good later piece worthless, but it should be priced as a later piece. The skill you are developing is not just spotting a fake, it is knowing which century you are actually looking at.

Reading Glaze Crazing Honestly

Crazing is the fine network of cracks that develops in a glaze when it contracts more than the clay body beneath it as the piece cools. On genuinely old ceramics, crazing tends to be irregular: finer here, wider there, running across the glaze but rarely in a perfectly even pattern. Dirt works its way into those lines over decades, so the deepest cracks are usually the darkest.

• Look at the dirt inside the cracks. Real grime accumulates unevenly and is darkest where the craze is deepest. Artificial staining sits evenly along every line, like ink in a map.
• Check where the crazing stops. If the web covers the body but mysteriously halts at the handle, rim or base, someone has been busy.
• Use a fingernail, gently. An open craze will catch slightly. Artificial crazing is often sealed with a wax or varnish that leaves a faint tackiness or shine in the lines.

Remember that crazing is a clue, not a verdict. Plenty of genuinely old pieces are entirely uncrazed, and plenty of 1950s domestic wares craze almost immediately.

The Foot Rim Tells the Truth

Turn the piece over before you fall in love with the front. The foot rim is where the pot met the kiln shelf, and it is the hardest area to fake convincingly because it records the whole process of making.

• Examine the unglazed foot ring. Early wares often show kiln grit, firing scars and bright patches where the base was ground flat after firing. Later copies frequently have a smooth, uniform foot, sometimes with an artificial sandy or chalky finish applied to look old.
• Hunt for spur marks. Many pieces stood on small props during firing, leaving three or four tiny scars on the base. Their absence on an object that should have them is telling.
• Weigh it in your hand. Eighteenth and nineteenth-century porcelain is often noticeably lighter and thinner than buyers expect. Copyists tend to overbuild, so reproductions can feel heavy and slightly clumsy.
• Feel for mould seams. Slip-cast copies leave a fine seam where the mould halves joined, often up a handle or beneath a spout. A good potter fettled it away, but on cheaper copies a thumbnail will find it.

Printed Marks: The Most Misread Clue

Printed marks are the easiest thing to reproduce and the first thing buyers trust, which is precisely the problem. A genuine early mark is usually painted or printed under the glaze and sits sealed beneath the surface, so you cannot feel it. A later printed backstamp sits on top of the glaze and can often be felt with a fingertip. Under a 10x loupe, modern printing shows a regular dot screen, while hand-painted lettering shows brush strokes and variation in thickness.

Watch for anachronisms too. The word "England" appears on wares from around 1891, "Made in England" is largely a twentieth-century convention, and "Foreign" was used on certain imported German wares. A mark that combines an eighteenth-century factory name with a nineteenth-century country of origin is a warning sign. Marks are also swapped: look for a small patch of glaze with a slightly different sheen, or a ring of old adhesive that glows under ultraviolet light.

Building Your Reference Library and Your Eye

Buy one reliable dictionary of pottery and porcelain marks, and one book devoted to the area you actually collect, whether that is Staffordshire figures, blue and white, or studio pottery. Keep them beside you when you browse online sales, and photocopy the marks of your chosen factories to carry in a pocket. Take a loupe, a small torch and a tape measure to fairs, and always ask about the returns policy before you pay.

Above all, handle as much as you can. Auction viewings are ideal for this: ask permission, keep your hands clean, lift by the base rather than the handle, and compare what you see with what the catalogue claims. Your eye learns faster than any book. And if a piece is offered at a fraction of what the real thing normally makes, assume the simple explanation. It is almost never a bargain; it is usually a lesson.