Most of the mistakes we have identified when dealing with Till & Son/s tend to centre around the datelines of the company and Tillson ware.

To be fair, many Till stamps make the claim that the company was established in 1825. This is also reinforced by the frequently quoted advertisement for 'Thos. Till & Sons in "The Pottery Gazette and Glass Trades Review Diary 1922" p. 24.  The advert declares the company to have been  "Estd. 1825". Coming from a family of pottery workers Thomas Till may well have been involved in the pottery industry at this time. However, he was certainly not based at the Sytch pottery until much later and had (pre -1850) been in business with Barker & Sutton, then Barker,  before being in business on his own. Therefore, most Till only stamped pieces are generally 1850 onwards. Edwin Till, Thomas's eldest son, is described as an earthenware manufacturer in the 1851 census, and by 1861 William Till is a partner in  the company.

There is some variation in the backstamps as well. Mostly the globe is associated with Till & Sons (as are some other primary potters) but there are variations of this ranging from a simple impressed 'TILL' to the elaborate scroll patterns with pattern names,  'Royal Cottage' and 'Geranium' being  particulary elaborate backstamps. Also, we have many pieces in the pattern 'Ye Olde English'. We have found the very same pattern in other pieces named 'Ye Olde Dresden'. Given that Till & Sons were no longer in production by 1928, we can only assume that the 'Dresden' name was the original but due to WW1 and the reluctance to be associated with anything Germanic for a period, Till & Sons may have felt obliged to change the name but continue the range of pottery.

When Till & Sons begin introducing the 'Tillson' range, the elaborate 'T' adopted cause much confusion. We have seen Tillson described variously as 'Cillson', 'Gillson' and even 'Hillson'. We are quite sure there are others. Even when the Tillson stamp still has the 'Till & Sons' we have seen pieces still advertised with these name anomalies.  

Also many potteries used generic transferware patterns such as willow pattern. It is not uncommon to see the same 'willow' pattern being used by a variety of companies. Therefore, when somebody advertises a non-backstamped item but states it is Till & Son/s because they have other items with the backstamp that look the same we treat this information with caution. We do recognise that many genuine Till items are not backstamped but we are usually able to recognise the pattern as being distinctively 'Till'. This is not always the case with willow patterns or green majolica. Small items are less likely to be backstamped, such as pots in a dressing table set, but normally a few key pieces will be stamped along with the main tray.

Without being too hard on individuals, it is sometimes really difficult to make out the name of a pattern if the stamp is blurry or smudged so these mistakes are understandable. If anybody has a Till piece and they are unsure of the pattern we are always happy to help out with identification so feel free to contact us through our email address or Facebook page. Also sometimes there are pattern variations which we are familiar with that the casual observer wouldn't be expected to know.