Why did furniture makers put their mark on an invisible surface ?

[Adam W.]

@jcassidy
Art history does indeed have a useful application and I'm a big fan of it.

As for marking stuff, you'll have to look very hard to find my mark, as it's never placed in an obvious position. The stuff I do for myself, I never mark.

 

[TRITON]

My idea was that you are a higher class citizen in the 17th century and you go somewhere and you see a beautiful high-end table and you really want to order a similar one from the same manufacturer.

You might find that the higher class of 17th century person would have the furniture that was in vogue. And would have a maker they had previous bought from copy the style they sought.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

It may be that marking originated with the growth of trade guilds which were established to promote the interests of their members - masons, silversmiths, carpenters, painters, shoemakers, tanners, bakers etc etc.

It would be a mark associated with quality - made by craftsmen who had undergone a rigorous training (apprenticeship) under a master, and who could (or should) be trusted to produced work to an acceptable standard.

Why it was put on a hidden surface - I don't know.

 

[Just4Fun]

I don't like having names emblazoned on my clothes. I will wear such clothes if I am paid to do so, which happens with sponsors names for my sport, but otherwise I avoid them. This gives a problem because I have loads of perfectly good coats, shirts etc with old sponsors' names on that I only like to wear for gardening or DIY.

I have never yet signed or put a maker's mark on any of my woodwork. As I have never sold anything I have made it would seem a bit arrogant/presumptious to do so.

 

[J-G]

...it would seem a bit arrogant/presumptious to do so

I used to consider that to be so but there are more reasons than arrogance to mark ones work.

I sell very few of my creations, mostly making as gifts but I do mark each - discretely - some items have to be marked by law being solid silver and over 1oz Troy in weight, but I also create publicity material for concerts which - up to now I have not marked. Today I had a need to review posters etc. that I'd created over the past 18 years. The problem is that I am not the only person doing the work - I have usually has some input - but many are all my work. The problem is that I cannot now be 100% sure which. So the poster I created today does have my initials, again, discretely, so that I will know in future that this one was in fact all mine.

 

[paulrbarnard]

@jcassidy
Art history does indeed have a useful application and I'm a big fan of it.

As for marking stuff, you'll have to look very hard to find my mark, as it's never placed in an obvious position. The stuff I do for myself, I never mark.

Woodworkers tend to have a history of users marks rather than makers marks. Pretty much all of my hand tools have a users mark. Many of them applied by my great grandfather.

 

[Just4Fun]

I used to consider that to be so but there are more reasons than arrogance to mark ones work.

Yes, you have good reasons to mark your work. I don't, and if I were to mark my work it would feel like giving myself airs & graces.

 

[Adam W.]

Woodworkers tend to have a history of users marks rather than makers marks. Pretty much all of my hand tools have a users mark. Many of them applied by my great grandfather.

Indeed, and I managed to score a vintage punch with my name on it last week.

There's also a lot of work with peoples names written inside joints and on the back sides of stuff.

 

[KevinLycett]

It would have been seen as vulgar and intrusive. As many people in this post still agree, it was definitely not the purchasers role to act as an advertising board for the craft person. That would have been an unthinkable inversion of the social order. All that wash needed was a discreet mark for authentication. Mouseman is much later in time and even so is quite an anomaly. What’s more his mice were usually tucked out of direct sight.

 

[tibi]

I have just found a list of people who like marking their furniture in this odd "Mouseman" fashion ...
Thomas "Gnomeman" Whittaker (1910–1991), Derek "Lizardman" Slater, Colin "Beaverman" Almack, Wilf "Squirrelman" Hutchinson, Albert "Eagleman" Jeffray, Malcolm "Foxman" Pipes, and Shaw & Riley "The Seahorsemen of Hessay".

Everyone has his own animal ....

 

[Droogs]

With my level of skill, I shall hence forth be known as ...







































amoebaman

 

[mark w]

I made 6 sets of these table legs for a customer (he makes intarsia table tops amongst other things), I have a name stamp and I applied it to the top inside face of one of the legs on each set. He paid for them and collected them.A day or so later I had a phone call from him, "Mark, I have found your name stamped on one of each set of legs, it's in such an inconspicuous place I found it very difficult to sand out, would you please not stamp them in future"
Clearly he was trying to pass them off as his own work, I refused not to stamp them and to date he has never returned, no great loss to me. Everything I make has my name on it, but you've got to find it. I'd be interested in any other makers thoughts about this.
James Krenov said his customers would contact him if he forgot to carve his famous JK in his work and would ask him to remedy this.
I had an opposite reaction to JK although some of my customers have asked if my work is marked and asked me to point it out.

 

[akirk]

…or Rolls Royce's Spirit of Ecstasy ornament before it was quite rightly removed for safety reasons.

It hasn’t been removed…
It now goes down into the bonnet when you switch the car off / in the event of impact but is otherwise still there… in fact RR were in the news very recently as they have just redesigned it to be more aerodynamic

 

[mwinfrance]

I did a mural ( one of two ) for a high class decorator's showroom near St Tropez, of the bay of St Tropez, made to look as if it was done by someone 2 centuries or so before and aged accordingly, the aging was all "trompe l'oeil". I heard later that he was passing it off as "he had painted it", and had placed a vase so as to hide what was my descreetly placed signature. I then heard that when challenged about his claim by a friend of mine who knew it was my work, his reply was that he would paint out my signature.In France this is illegal, so I had a lawyer write to tell him so, and that if he persisted in this "passing off" I would sue.Apparently his lawyers must have told him that the law was on my side.I subsequently heard that he was telling people that I had painted it, but that I was now dead.

Similar thing happened a few years later with our custom painting and murals, decors business, we had hired a sales rep, ( unemployed guy who showed up one day looking for work , who we felt sorry for ) on a commission basis, who we gave a "press book" ( french term for book of sample photos of what you have done ) ..One day I got an extremely irate phone call from someone about really shoddy work that had been delivered to them.

I had never dealt with them and said so. They asked me to visit, which I did.Turned out that our "rep" had been telling people that it was he who had done all the work in the press book. He had taken an order for custom work, delivered it, been paid cash by the customer's wife and left.It was indeed incredibly badly done.Further investigation found that he had used my press book to get various grants to set up his new business claiming it was what he could do.He had claimed around €10000.oo this way.I went to see the people who had authorised these grants and asked them why someone called Stephan, had been able to grants based on showing a few hundred photos of work which all had visible signatures with Mike on them. The reply.."not my job to verify who did the work".. His dossier was complete, so all was in order..They would not be asking foir the govt money to be given back*
My wife phoned the guy and told him to bring back the press book, or I would visit him, and deal with him.
He brought it back when he was sure I was not around..no point sueing him, he had no money..he had a wife and kid, not their fault.I saw him once, from a distance, he saw me, then he hit the car in front of him as he tried to get away.

* If they had asked for it to be repaid, they would no doubt had to explain why they did not notice that the work shown to justify the grants bore a name other than that of the supposed artist.

This is a reason to mark one's work, it prevents passing off, or at least makes it more difficult, and more likely to come to light.

 

[mwinfrance]

It hasn’t been removed…
It now goes down into the bonnet when you switch the car off / in the event of impact but is otherwise still there… in fact RR were in the news very recently as they have just redesigned it to be more aerodynamic

A friend whose business was Classic Car restorations showed me this, said "try and take hold of the lady"..it vanished downwards. Impossible, he said it was an anti-theft device, done at about the same time as rappers ( and wannabee rappers ) were stealing VW badges off cars and camper vans and wearing them around their necks on chains.He said Rollers were being targeted too as "trophy" thefts, so RR came up with the disappearing lady.

 

[Fergie 307]

I had always understood it was a safety device, so that any peasant unfortunate enough to go over the bonnet of your RR won't be eviscerated. The Mercedes star is spring loaded and will fold flat or break off in similar circumstances, and for the same reason.

 

[Richard C-D]

This is part of an Edwardian pine settle I repaired a few years ago. I found this address when another piece was removed, the holes were where screws went through. The writing would never normally be seen so why was it there?

Around ten years ago I repaired a mid-Georgian bureau. It was the sort that looks like a chest of drawers but the top two drawers are actually a fall front that has a pull out section of small drawers. This was jamming so I had to remove the bureau back to remove the pull out part. On the underside of this the maker had used it to practice geometry drawing. There were gothic arches, ogee curves, octagons and other diagrams and sketches. Maybe they weren't allowed large sheets of paper so used the surface that would never be seen again.

 

[mwinfrance]

For those who may have missed this, not a maker's mark.
A diary.
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-44265475