Topic: Vaseline Uranium Dish. (Bagley?)

[Frank]

The original application documents are the only way to clarify as they can also indicate first use. I have some documents with a first use 40 years before the first registration application. Often designs were registered in multiple countries and it is very common to find first use dates on Canadian and South African documents.

In other words all the date tells you is about the registration process and not the date the design was introduced.

[Lustrousstone]

Frank's thoughts explain the large quantities of uranium Carnival without a reg mark but not the large quantities with a reg mark - the mystery of the confiscated uranium remains

[Anne]

Hmmm doesn't it just, Christine.  I wonder if Adam Dodds may be able to add any more info for us?

[Bernard C]

... In other words all the date tells you is about the registration process and not the date the design was introduced.

What a misleading comment.

It is obvious from the context that we are discussing British designs (or plagiarised American designs like the Grace Darling boat, which are effectively the same), manufactured and registered in Britain to protect them in the home market.   We are not discussing international protection, international manufacture, nor are we considering oddities like Davidson's reregistration of old patterns to keep them protected indefinitely.    We knew of just one example of a lengthy time period (just over a decade) between design and registration in this context up to February 2008, when Sid, with help from James, Roy and myself showed that it was a previously unrecognised error by Simon Cottle in his book on Sowerby, incidentally demonstrating the importance of this message board in providing an international forum.   As far as I am aware no other examples are known.

As a mathematician and statistician I am 99.9% confident that in this context designs were registered as part of the development process — that there was no significant delay between design and registration.   This is as close to certainty as you are ever likely to get with the imprecise world of history.   There are scenarios where a delay would have been reasonable, such as seasonal goods, event souvenirs, and a forthcoming trade catalogue, where you would expect a delay in registration so as not to acquaint competitors with new designs until the last possible moment, but even in such circumstances I have not found examples.

I hope examples will emerge.   It will be interesting to examine them and consider possible explanations and their implications.   However, a handful of exceptions will have no effect on the generally established rule, that, in this wholly British context, there is a strong, significant, and tight correlation between the dates of design and registration.

Bernard C. 

[Glen]

I've got 14 individual fruit dishes in this pattern /colour, plus the large berry bowl and large sugar (both with the Reg No) and the cream jug.

I also have a celery vase in the same pattern with a Reg No. Now here's the puzzle.....the moulded RD No is shown as 84118. Looks like they missed out a digit on my celery!

Glen

[Lustrousstone]

Well that means you're missing the butter dish, the cheese dish and the tea/under plates wot I have got (OK only one tea plate, I sold three)  and the biscuit barrel wot I haven't got (well only in non-U green and missing a lid)

[David E]

Christine, I'm sure I recall someone (Adam, Bernard or Glen perhaps?) explaining that the registration process took quite a while to go through, so whilst the design is dated Nov 1946 the items could be made prior to that.

That would assume they pre-empted the design application process, surely? If the design was not registered until 1946, they could not have stamped it with anything until approval was received. I suppose that any items made prior would be unmarked.

I doubt if delays would have been more than a year in any event, but could be wrong as it was just post-war and a busy time!

[David E]

Christine — That text is not in my first edition.   I still think that confiscation would have been unlikely after the war — compulsory purchase perhaps.

Personally, I always though all uranium stocks were confiscated/purchased (or whatever) earlier than this. I have explained to Bernard before, that I have seen this mentioned somewhere, but darned if I can remember where... Probably a Pottery Gazette - I'll have to trawl through the wartime ones again, unless I noted it down.

[Adam]

Anne - You ask if I can help re confiscated uranium.  I'd never heard that story, although obviously uranium would be much in demand around that time.  I have never myself used uranium.  I mentioned somewhere before that I inherited maybe a pound or so of uranium oxide at Davidsons in 1956 but we never played with it because even if we had developed something wonderful we couldn't have gone into production.  It was still there when I left - it was in a loft so maybe the Government hadn't found it!

Adam D.

[Anne]

Adam, thanks for picking this up and responding. It was just a thought that you may have picked something up about in the grapevine at some time.

As the info came from Angela's Bagley book it'd probably be a good idea for us to ask her where she found the info then.

BTW Adam, I wonder if your uranium oxide was ever noticed again in the loft?