Registration - The Economies of Scale
Few realise that a factory used the same registered shape
or form over twenty times in order to maximise the benefit of
protection from illegal copying for three years. How effectively
the law was (or was not) enforced is a quite separate matter,
although Wm Brownfield did take one manufacturer to court for
illegally copying the Fern jug (1859) and he also threatened
another.
Wm
Brownfield registered many plate shapes, two of which illustrate
this theme: one on 10th February 1851 and the second on
2nd October 1854. This month's topic illustrates the latter of
these registrations, with over twenty eight different examples
already discovered. Space permits twenty-four of them to be shown
here. Notice that the only element that the plates have in common
is the relief moulded edging including the little interspersed
rose bud heads.
The dates below indicate the first introduction date:
each may have remained in production for fifteen to twenty years.
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