I have 4 vases, miniature and they simply have the word Foreign stamped on them. I was wondering what, if any, the value they hold. I realize they are fairly old, and understand why they were stamped as Foreign, but I do not seem to have much luck finding anything on the internet about this. Any help would be appreciated.
Origin of the ‘FOREIGN’ marking:
McKinley Tariff Act (1)
On October 1st 1890 the Congress of the United States passed the ‘McKinley Tariff Act’, a law that was introduced by the 25th President, William McKinley. The act required a higher tariff from and demanded that all items imported to the US, regardless of country of origin, had to be marked as ‘FOREIGN’.
Prior to this date British Parliament passed the Merchandise Act on August 23rd 1887 in order to protect the British market from German imports. This law required that all goods from Germany carry an permanent mark which clearly stated ‘Made in Germany’. That mark however had the unintended side effect of being synonymous with quality.
The exception to this was import on pottery from West Germany (but this is pottery and not china/porcelain) to the East Block/Communist countries. It was not favorable to import “Made in West Germany” into Communist Countries so potter’s used the “foreign” backstamp to sell in those markets.
Skip back to the late 1800’s and turn of the Century when England imposed that all German products imported into their country had the “Made in Germany” backstamp other high-end Porcelain houses soon adopted the practice.
The mark “foreign” was used off and on in the last century, I’m sorry that this isn’t more helpful.