Tag: belleek-black-mark

A Belleek mark’s colour gives its period: black before 1946, green 1946 to 1980, gold 1980 to 1993, blue 1993 to 2000. Ribbon and roundel narrow the years.

Belleek Pottery in County Fermanagh has printed a wolfhound, a round tower and a harp on its wares since the 1860s, and it has used sixteen numbered versions of that stamp, each differing in colour or in a small detail. This guide walks through each change in order, so you can place a cup, basket or figure in its period from the back stamp alone. It is a factory-specific companion to the site’s broader antique pottery marks identification guide, which covers how to read ceramic marks in general.

What the Belleek mark shows

Every standard Belleek mark combines an Irish wolfhound, a round tower, a harp and sprigs of shamrock above a banner that reads BELLEEK. The pottery describes the design on its own dating page: the Irish Wolfhound with head turned to face the Round Tower believed to be modelled on Fermanagh’s own Devenish Round Tower, the Irish Harp and sprigs of shamrock which border the ends of the banner at base of each design and carries the single word Belleek (Belleek Pottery: Date Your Belleek). The founders chose these emblems deliberately. The same page explains that the firm of David Mc Birney & Co was formed in 1857 and the lease on the pottery site signed, and that the symbols chosen for the emblem of the Pottery were the Harp, Round Tower and Wolfhound sitting on an island of shamrocks.

The hound-and-tower stamp was not the very first mark. The Belleek UK Collectors Group records that one of the earliest was a circular band with the wording ‘Belleek Enniskillen’, and that the combined wolfhound, harp and round tower followed it (Belleek UK Collectors Group marks page, belleek.org.uk, which serves over plain HTTP so it is cited here without a link). The porcelain itself arrived a few years after the factory. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s record for a Belleek dessert stand states that the Belleek factory began experimenting with porcelain production in 1863 on the arrival of William Bromley, previously foreman at the Staffordshire factory of W.H. Goss (V&A: Belleek dessert stand, ca. 1868). The National Museum of Ireland adds the people behind the venture: John Caldwell Bloomfield, who found feldspar on his estate, financed the business with the architect Robert William Armstrong and the Dublin businessman David McBirney, and the foundation stone for the new factory was laid in 1858 (National Museum of Ireland: Belleek Pottery).

Black marks, 1863 to 1946

A black mark places a Belleek piece before 1946, and the ribbon and roundel split that long span into three periods. The first mark has no ribbon under the banner. The second adds a ribbon reading CO FERMANAGH IRELAND. The third adds a round Celtic scroll reading Deanta in Eireann and a registry number.

The first mark ran from 1863 until the ribbon arrived in 1891. The pottery’s own page labels it 1st Mark 1863-1891, while the UK Collectors Group table ends it at 1890; both agree that the second mark began in 1891. Colour is the trap in this period. The pottery states that the colour of the mark during this period was predominantly black but other colours were used, amongst them red, blue, orange, green, brown, and pink. The V&A stand bought in April 1868 shows this in a museum record: its mark is a dog beside a round tower, with a harp, shamrock and a band inscribed ‘BELLEEK’, described as a printed factory mark in blue. A red, blue or brown hound-and-tower stamp with no ribbon is therefore a first-period mark, not a later novelty. Impressed marks also belong here. The pottery used an impressed mark with the words “Belleek,CO. FERMANAGH” or “Belleek”, or a small impressed mark of a harp or harp and crown, and notes that the latter are more usually found on Earthenware. The collectors’ first-period gallery shows further variants: retailer names such as John Mortlock of Oxford Street, pattern names printed in the banner on earthenware, and a separate registration lozenge beside the mark (collectors group, first period marks page).

The second mark, 1891 to 1926, reflects the addition of a ribbon surrounding the lower half of the design for the first mark on which appears the words “CO FERMANAGH IRELAND”. The pottery explains the reason: the change occurred in 1891 in compliance with the 1891 Mc Kinley Tariff Act and the 1887 British Merchandise Act as amended in 1891, requiring the country of origin to be specified on the article. Where impressed marks were used, particularly with figurines, the word “IRELAND” is added. Faded or discoloured second marks exist; the pottery considers it likely that this product was made during the First World War when materials were difficult to acquire. The collectors’ second-period page adds that the mark is generally black but variations have included blue and green, that a version without the ribbon and with the word Ireland below the first-period design appears on smaller pieces, and that retailer marks for Robinson and Cleaver and Tiffany & Co New York occur in this period (collectors group, second period marks page).

The third mark, 1926 to 1946, was introduced in 1926, possibly to mark the Wembley Exhibition of that year. It carries the registry mark “REG No 0857” inside a round scroll with Celtic decoration and the words “deanta in eireann” (made in Ireland). Read that number carefully: the pottery points out that this registry mark dates from 1884 but was only used from 1926, so the number is not a production date. This mark is always black. On earthenware, the stamp Belleek changed to “Melvin Ware” in 1936. The collectors’ third-period page notes a version without the Co Fermanagh ribbon but with the Deanta in Eireann roundel, found on smaller pieces (collectors group, third period marks page).

Green marks, 1946 to 1980

A green hound-and-tower mark dates a piece between 1946 and 1980, and the position of a small R in a circle splits those years into three. The fourth mark, 1946 to 1955, is identical to the third in every way except the colour. The pottery resumed full production in 1946 and, in tests carried out on backstamps, green was felt to be less obtrusive than black at showing through the translucent China.

The fifth mark, 1955 to 1965, adds a capital “R” in a circle to signify that the trademark had been registered in the United States; the additional mark is placed immediately above the right hand tip of the banner with the words “CO FERMANAGH IRELAND”. The sixth mark, 1965 to 1980, is smaller: the size of the mark was reduced in 1965 probably to accommodate placing stamps on smaller pieces, and the “R” in the circle moved to above the harp. So a green mark with no R is 1946 to 1955, an R at the ribbon tip is 1955 to 1965, and an R above the harp is 1965 to 1980. Special green marks exist within this span. The collectors’ later-marks page shows a 1957 green centenary mark with a limited edition number, and records that a year before the gold period a special red Collectors Mark was developed for exclusive use on pieces issued to members of the society (collectors group, marks after 1946 page). A red mark on a modern piece therefore signals a collectors’ society issue, not a first-period rarity.

Gold, blue and the marks since 2000

The seventh mark is gold, and it marks a design change as well as a colour change. In April 1980 the seventh mark was introduced to commemorate the centenary of Gold medal won at the Melbourne Exhibition of 1880. The colour was changed to gold and the round disk with “deanta in eireann” was omitted, and the banner wording shortened to Ireland. Around 1984 the gold colour on the mark was substituted with a browner toned gold colour to improve the clarity of the backstamp. The collectors’ table dates the gold mark from 1 April 1980 to 22 December 1992.

Blue follows. The gold mark was earmarked to be changed in 1990, but the mark was not changed until 1993. The eighth mark, 1993 to 1997, is blue and similar to the second mark in style with the addition of the “R” above the harp. The ninth mark, 1997 to 2000, is a second blue mark, larger and with a new representation of the Wolfhound, Round Tower and Harp, because there were a lot of problems with the first blue mark with parts of the mark burning off during firing, and pieces had to be re-fired.

The marks since 2000 change colour every few years. The tenth mark is black with the additional legend above the mark “MILLENNIUM 2000” and “IRELAND” below the mark, limited to pieces made during the year 2000. The eleventh, 2001 to 2007, returns to green, using a darker colour of green based on Belleek’s corporate green. The twelfth, for 2007 only, is a special black stamp with a banner added above the mark saying “Celebrating 150 years”. Brown arrived in January 2008 with what the pottery calls a new brown 13th trademark, and brown has continued through the sixteenth mark. The fourteenth added the website address www.belleek.ie; the fifteenth records that the web address changed in 2014 from www.belleek.ie to www.belleek.com; and the sixteenth, from January 2019, has introduced “Made in Ireland” into the backstamp. Pieces from the contemporary Belleek Living range carry their own Belleek Living trademark rather than the hound-and-tower stamp, so a modern piece without the classic emblem is not automatically a copy.

The company’s own page gives some boundary years two ways, for example 2008-2010 in its list and 2008 – 2011 in its heading for the thirteenth mark, and the collectors’ table differs by a year at several points. Treat a piece from a boundary year as belonging to either side rather than forcing a single date.

Registration lozenges, pattern names and retailer marks

Extra stamps beside the Belleek emblem date the design or name the seller, not the piece. The pottery warns that some pieces of Belleek also carry the British Patent Office registration mark which gives the date of registration, not the date the piece was manufactured. The National Archives explains the system: diamond marks were brought into use with the 1842 Ornamental Designs Act and were no longer used once the 1842 Act was replaced by the 1883 Act, so the fact that a design has a diamond mark at all tells you that it dates from between 1842 and 1883 (The National Archives: registered designs 1839-1991). The Roman numeral at the top of the lozenge gives the material class, and IV means ceramic. A Belleek Echinus or Thorn piece with a lozenge was therefore registered in that window, but the shape could have stayed in production for decades afterwards. Designs registered from 1884 under the 1883 Patents, Trade Marks and Designs Act received plain numbers instead, which is why the third mark’s REG No 0857 is a registration number from 1884 rather than a date code.

Pattern names and numbers behave the same way. The collectors’ first-period gallery shows pattern names such as Fumaria and Leinster printed in the banner, impressed pattern names on Thorn, and painted colourway numbers; the third-period page shows painted pattern numbers beside the mark. Retailer names from Mortlock in London, Whyte and Co in Dublin, Robinson and Cleaver and Tiffany & Co tell you who sold the piece, and the collectors’ pages tie each of them to a period. If the pattern is the puzzle rather than the mark, the site’s guide to identifying a china pattern from a photo covers the method. Baskets are a special case because the mark is a separate applied pad. The collectors’ marks page shows pads starting with a first-period ‘Belleek Ireland’ pad and gives the rule that if painted, then it is a newer post 50’s example with ® included in the name pad, with strand counts of two, three and four tracked by period.

Belleek that is not Irish Belleek

The word Belleek on an American piece usually names a type of porcelain, not the Irish factory. The Trenton City Museum’s history of the Trenton pottery industry records that the city pioneered the development of art porcelain through the introduction in 1882 of “Belleek” china, using techniques developed at the Irish Belleek works (Trenton City Museum: the pottery industry in Trenton). The same page names the makers: Ott and Brewer also pioneered the introduction and development of Belleek into the United States, Belleek was produced at Willets from 1887 through 1909, and at the Ceramic Art Company the word “Lenox” was added beneath the CAC mark before, in February 1906, the name of the company was changed to Lenox, Inc. It also notes that production of this product was centered in Trenton although other potteries in Ohio and Baltimore, Maryland also produced a small quantity. These American wares carry their own devices, such as the CAC artist’s palette, and never the Irish hound and tower. The site’s Lenox china marks guide explains how the word Belleek appears on early CAC marks and when Lenox dropped it. The museum describes American Belleek as a thin porcelain body, which is why an unmarked ivory shell-form piece cannot be assigned to Fermanagh on body and glaze alone.

The Irish mark itself needs a careful reading rather than a quick glance. The pottery calls its emblem the mark without which none is genuine, but the sources above show faded second marks, first marks in six colours, special red society marks and a Belleek Living trademark with no hound at all. A mark that is worn, refired or partly burnt off still belongs to one of the periods described here; it does not need to look crisp to be the factory’s. Equally, a transfer-printed stamp can be copied, so the mark should agree with the body: a thin, light parian with the lustrous glaze the V&A describes, or the heavier earthenware that carried the Melvin Ware stamp after 1936. Where the mark and the body disagree, a specialist dealer or the Belleek Collectors’ International Society is the next step, not a confident date.

Check your Belleek piece in three steps

Start with colour, then the small additions, then anything else stamped nearby. First, note the colour of the hound-and-tower mark: black means before 1946 or one of the two commemorative years 2000 and 2007, green means 1946 to 1980 or 2001 to 2007, gold means 1980 to 1993, blue means 1993 to 2000, and brown means 2008 or later. A red, blue, orange or brown mark with no ribbon is an early first-period variant, and a red mark on a modern piece is a collectors’ society issue. Second, look under the banner and above the harp: no ribbon is first period, the CO FERMANAGH IRELAND ribbon alone is second period, the Deanta in Eireann roundel is third period or green, and the position of the R in a circle separates the three green marks. Third, read any extra stamp for what it is: a diamond lozenge dates the design registration between 1842 and 1883, REG No 0857 is a registration number not a date, a retailer name tells you the shop, and a web address or Made in Ireland puts the piece after 2011. Once you have the period, the site’s guide to how much antique china is worth explains how to compare the piece with sold examples from the same period and pattern, and the Royal Worcester marks dating guide shows how a factory with yearly date codes differs from Belleek, whose marks give a period rather than a single year.

Method and limits: This article is a synthesis of the linked sources: Belleek Pottery’s own dating page, the Belleek UK Collectors Group mark galleries, a Victoria and Albert Museum object record, a National Museum of Ireland collection note, The National Archives’ guide to registered designs, and the Trenton City Museum’s account of American Belleek. No object was examined for it, and no price or value is given. The period boundaries follow the pottery’s page where the collectors’ table differs by a year, and both are quoted. A back stamp dates the marking of a piece to a period; it does not by itself establish the pattern, the decorator or the condition, and faded, refired or copied marks need comparison with the body and with documented examples.