Dating Royal Copenhagen - marking system for figurines and collectibles (2024)

1. Dating by backstamp and painter's number before 1935

Pre-1900	1894-1900	Pre-1923 mark with Painter's number	1924-1934 with Painter's number

2. Dating by painter's number or initials

Painter's number 1893 -1928 (193).	Painter's initials lower case till about 1950 (ffx) with the addition of "x" simply a form of fecit = painted by	Painter's initials upper-case letters (a few appears before 1950) until present

In the Collector's Guide by Caroline & Nick Pope you will find a list of the known painters with number-signature and their working period at Royal Copenhagen. Also the data of the designing artist will be an important indication of possible age.

3. Dating by backstamp 1935 - 2002 Royal Copenhagen Denmark

	Bar above a letter in Royal or Copenhagen		Bar below a letter in Royal, Denmark or Copenhagen		A bar above two letters in Royal
R	1935	R	1950	RO	1985-1991
O	1936	O	1951	RY	1992-1999
Y	1937	Y	1952	RA	1999-2004
A	1938	A	1953
L	1939	L	1954
C	1940	D	1955
O	1941	E	1956
P	1942	N	1957
E	1943	M	1958
N	1944	A	1959
H	1945	R	1960
A	1946	K	1961
G	1947	C	1962
E	1948	O	1963
N	1959	P	1964
		E	1965
		N	1966
		H	1967
		A	1968
		G	1969-1974
		E	1975-1979
		N	1980-1984

4. Dating by back stamp DENMARK with crown or 3 wavy lines

A bar above a letter in Denmark		A bar below a letter in Denmark		A (u) above a letter in Denmark		A (u) below a letter in Denmark		A (slash) above a letter in Denmark		A (slash) below a letter in Denmark
D	1935	D	1942	D	1949	D	1956	D	1963	D	75/79
E	1936	E	1943	K	1950	K	1957	K	1964	K	80/84
N	1937	N	1944	E	1951	E	1958	E	1965	E	85/89
M	1938	M	1945	R	1952	R	1959	R	1966	R	90/94
A	1939	A	1946	N	1953	N	1960	N	1967	N	95/99
R	1940	R	1947	A	1954	A	1961	A	1968	A	00/04
K	1941	K	1948	M	1955	M	1962	M	69/74	M

5. Signatures

The artist have different ways of signing their works of modeling or decoration:

Initial of artist incised under the base - on production pieces	Full signature by artist - on unique or limited pieces	Monogram by artist - on unique or limited pieces	Signature on the figurine - on production pieces	Monogram on the figurine - on production pieces

6. Juliane Marie mark

Over glaze and some white pieces produced from 1900 and onward are stamped with the Juliane Marie Mark

Juliane Marie mark and Denmark mark on a Blanc de Chine	Juliane Marie Mark overglaze hand painted	Juliane Marie Crown on overglaze handpainted	Inscriptions under the base of overglaze	Interesting signatures - I will be very interested in photos like below	Juliane Marie mark on the side of the figurine

7. Dating overglaze

8. Color variations on figurines.

Pieces which are produced in different color variations have a fractional number

Color code 0 for predominantly white pieces	Color code 1 for Blue Fluted ?	Color code 1025 for cats	Color code 1066 for ?	Color code 1238 for "brown" dogs
Color code 1452 for gray patches on white	Color code 1453 Orange - Light brown	Color Code 1708 for "brindle" on certain dogs	Grey-brown colors Color codes 946 & 947 for foxes	Some pieces were privately painted by the painters for themselves
			1233 for bears 1252 for rabbits 1454 for monkeys.

9. Aluminia Faience

Aluminia Faience 1903 -1969 - you have the beehive - a capital A with the three wavy lines	Aluminia became Royal Copenhagen faience from 1969	Aluminia Faience 1929-1950 on a crackled porcelain dog	Signatures on Aluminia and Royal Copenhagen faiences	Artist list Copenhagen porcelain and art pottery from 1890s and forward

10. Marking on Royal Copenhagen dinnerware and Flora Danica

From the late 19th century the Flora Danica were marked with the name of the Latin flower in black; the Royal Copenhagen hallmark and the pattern and form number	Antique Flora Danica ca. 1860-1880	The painters of Flora Danica, where aloud to paint a few items every year they for themselves. These are marked with the painters name /initials and a date - the name of the flower is always handwritten or not there. Quality vary from not so good to superb.	The history of special orders are long - some with special motives; other's just marked on the back like above	A series of Japanese flowers were painted on a special form

11. Second quality

			"Errare humanum est"
Pieces which do not meet the factory's demands for perfection are marked as "seconds". This was done by scratching through the 3 wavy blue lines with a diamond cutter. These pieces were sold with a 25-30% discount at the factory shop.	Pontil marks - Some larger pieces required additional support during firing, resulting in small circular marks beneath the supported area. Not really a reason to call it a 2nd.	Larger pieces with firing cracks were also sold as 2nd or 3rd quality instead of being destroyed	It is said that in the 1920-30's the factory used to let factory workers buy 3rds & 4ths for very little money ...and that resulted in "a lot" of 3rds & 4ths being made, many of them having nothing wrong with them.

11. References

12. A note from Jamiri.dk

This is a dynamic site - constantly under development - please mail your questions, corrections and suggestion - they will be taken seriously. I also welcome any photos of signatures or examples.

Do you like what you see at these pages? In the future we would like to be able to create a site that will be an inspiration to collectors all over the world. We would like to make more theme pages based on artists or motives. Also we intend to generate and translate more information about Danish Porcelain Artists, markings, dating and the different china patterns. Please consider supporting this project by sponsoring a few minutes work by contributing a small donating.

Jan Ringsmose, 2006