The first firm to develop a reliable recipe was Spode in 1799. Germany, France and the rest of Europe stuck to their older, more traditional Chinese porcelain recipes (no animal bone).

Bone china is a very pure white (whiter than standard European porcelain) and can be cast so thin as to be translucent, yet is still surprisingly chip resistant compared with lesser crockery like ironstone and earthenware.

Moorcroft collectors should be aware of the Silver Stripe that sometimes appears and is almost always through the WM monogram.

The Moorcroft silver stripe denotes a second quality or imperfect piece that has failed to pass the strict quality control that Moorcroft demands.

New makers with tighter marketing plans have taken their place over the last 60 years or so.

he object of a ceramic trade mark is to enable at least the retailer to know the name of the manufacturer of the object, so that re-orders, etc., can be correctly addressed.

Modern Moorcroft marks continue to become more elaborate and to provide more and more information.

Wedgwood, being very cautious about luxury porcelains, chose not to go into bone china at first.

They let firms like Spode and Rockingham do the pioneering work. Many of the old antique bone china making firms have not survived to the current day.

It was a requirement of this Act that all such imports carried the name of the country of manufacture.

This provided well-known marks such as "Bavaria," "England," "Nippon," - indicating the country of manufacture.