The Tale of Morimura Brothers Noritake Porcelain & Their Marks

It's been a while since I wrote a post with a long story. This one was the fruit of several years of getting involved in the Noritake Collectors Club in USA, run by a man named David Spain, in late 1990s and early 2000s.

He was a long term Noritake collector, and an author of several great quality reference books about it. He published a monthly newsletter, and allowed me to write a few articles for it. Of course I loved the Noritake Art Deco porcelain pieces, and the many designs they initiated with their fine porcelain manufacture, established in 1910 or so.

One of the points we discussed over and over were the marks found on the pieces, especially the M in wreath mark, which was a code for the quality of the item, the red mark being the top notch.

The other issues were the Nippon marks pre 1921, and what was made by Noritake and what was not. There were the M in a wreath marks with NIPPON instead of Made In Japan, Hand Painted, and some more obscure porcelain marks that by 2000, many believed were also made by Noritake, but David Spain himself or his Japanese wife, contacted the current Noritake management and they said those marks were NOT Noritake.

Still, he was convinced that the blue stamp on white, often unglazed porcelain base were by them: the rising sun, the maple leaf, the RC initials, and probably a few more. Finally, by 2004 or so, Noritake admitted they were their marks, meant for economy lines that sold for less and were not as good in quality. Noritake of the early 1900s felt they did not want their name associated with the lines that did not reflect their superiority in the Japanese porcelain export category. The RC marks represented the name ROYAL CROCKERY.

My collection of Nippon and Made In Japan (MIJ) porcelain pieces was varied and I still have a few. These shakers with tray are a recent acquisition, I was hoping to replace the old plastic ones we use now, but I discovered these are really small, and more pleasing to the eye than practical.

This tale is to demonstrate something I learned 15 years ago or more, about export goods and their marks, you can't know all there is to know about them. When I collected decorative cloisonne pieces from Japan and China for 10 years, produced from the early 20th and late 19th, also made for export, there were numerous ways to mark the items, based on the chain of each business entity involved in the export/import process.