Pattern Dates

Identifying and dating Maling isn't as easy as it could be.

• For the first 50 years or so, pieces carry no mark, so identification is a matter of conjecture.
• Pieces begin to carry a 'Maling' mark from around 1817, when the factory moved to Newcastle, but there are still no pattern numbers and only occasionally a pattern name.
• A coherent system of numbering and naming patterns was introduced in the 1880s. Pattern numbers are hand-painted. Pattern names (where found) are incorporated into the transfer-printed factory mark.
• In the following 80 years or so, Maling produced over 16,500 patterns.
• When the factory closed in 1963, the pattern books were sold off as scrap paper!

If you're lucky, you may find small numbers impressed into the base of the piece in mm.yy form. So 11.29 would indicate November 1929. (BIG numbers are pattern shapes, or occasionally the size in inches.) Otherwise, the following information should help you to date your pieces of Maling. You have:

• A list of painted pattern numbers used by the factory, with approximate dates;
• A table which should help you to date pieces which carry a Registered Number.
• A separate page of known Maling Pattern Numbers and Names

Maling pattern dates

Maling appear to have used two main sequences of pattern numbers: the first probably running from c.1883 to c.1918, and the second running from c.1908 to the end of the pottery's life. Confusingly, the two overlapping lists follow the same numerical order, so a piece numbered 6000 could be 1890s or 1930s. Your sense of style should tell you which is which.
Bear in mind that all of the marks must be taken account of when dating a piece of Maling. For instance, a piece might have a 1920s pattern number but an impressed year mark for 1940: this would indicate that the piece is a 1940s piece decorated with an older pattern. Alternatively, a piece might have an impressed year mark for 1929 but be decorated with a later pattern: this would indicate that the pottery was using up some of the old undecorated stock that was sometimes allowed to accumulate in the warehouse.

Registered Numbers

Maling took out over one hundred patents of designs between 1886 and 1930. Many of these were for shapes. The following list does NOT relate to Maling pieces, but may help you to arrive at an approximate date for any piece which carries a Registered Number (often abbreviated to "Rd No").

Please Note - Popular shapes may have been in production for several decades after they were first registered!

 

Rd. No.	Registered in:		Rd. No.	Registered in:
1	January 1884		19754	January 1885
40480	January 1886		64520	January 1887
90483	January 1888		116648	January 1889
141273	January 1890		163767	January 1891
185713	January 1892		205240	January 1893
224720	January 1894		246975	January 1895
268392	January 1896		291241	January 1897
311658	January 1898		331707	January 1899
351202	January 1900		552000	1910
673750	1920		751160	1930