BOOTHS - Real Old Willow - 9072 and A8025

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The Different Varieties of Real Old Willow

This is the most widely collected of all Booths patterns, and was produced for most of the C20th, finally coming to an end in 1999. It comes in several versions:

Gold Gilding on the rim and the inner band entirely in gold. This is the most highly prized by collectors.
Brown No gilding on the rim, inner band in brown only. This is a cheaper version of the pattern which was introduced in the mid 1930s and continued throughout the Second World War (when gold was in short supply).
Gold and brown Gold on the rim but the central portion of the inner band is brown, flanked by two gold bands. We believe this was produced by adding gilding to the brown version - in the photo you can clearly see that on this example the gold band does not accurately mask the brown below.

Furthermore there exist two distinct patterns, the more widespread A8025 and the earlier (and harder to find) 9072 pattern, which can be recognised easily by the more old-fashioned lettering in the mark (see examples below).

For more information on shapes, a valuation guide and a list of all the different items known, please see William Parkin's The Earthenwares of Booths 1864-1948 (A Collector's Guide), ISBN: 0 9530976 0 9.

There's also the more recent (2008), meticulously researched publication by Andrew & Olwyn Pye, The Story of Booths and Willow Patterns, ISBN: 978 0 9559107 0 8 (available from Amazon and eBay, price £17.95), to which we have contributed some photographs.

A Note on the Dating of 9072 and A8025

Dating of the two REAL OLD WILLOW patterns has been widely misrepresented. Parkin follows the information given in Geoffrey Godden's Encyclopedia of British Pottery & Porcelain Marks, which implies the following dates for Booths china:

9072  1906-1912	NB: These are the incorrect dates as given in most reference books	A8025 1912-1930
"Crown" mark		"Book" mark

Many dealers will insist on the above dates, even when items are clearly impressed with contradictory date stamps. These date stamps, when present, take the form of 3 or 4 numbers, often accompanied by the word BOOTHS, and give the month and year of manufacture of the clay body upon which the transfer was fired. Here are some examples:

335 - March 1935
1127 - November 1927
9.16 - September 1916

This confusion is also widespread amongst other Booths patterns with the Silicon China "Crown" mark, such as PARROT, NETHERLANDS, PAGODA, etc, which were all produced much later than the supposed 1912 cut-off point, as is evident from impressed dates.

The true chronology, as proven in 2008 by Andrew and Olwyn Pye's book, is as follows:

This is backed up by our observations of impressed date stamps. A similar chronology was proposed by Conrad Biernacki in the Willow Transfer Quarterly, April 1984, as kindly drawn to our attention several years ago by Fran Entwistle (whose impressive collection forms the basis of the Pye book mentioned above).

Biernacki, however, gave the transition date between the two 9072 patterns as 1918 rather than 1921.

Note the following:

• MADE IN ENGLAND was added to the "Crown" mark in 1921.
  
• 9072 and A8025 do not overlap - A8025 superceded 9072 around 1944.
  
• Far from pre-dating 1930 (as would be inferred from consulting "Godden"), items with the "Book" backstamp can actually date from as late as 1980. This information can also be applied to other patterns with this mark such as POMPADOUR, FRIESIAN, etc...

When the Booths factory closed in 1981, Royal Doulton decided to continue production of REAL OLD WILLOW, with their own backstamp, adding the words "The Majestic Collection". This range was produced on a translucent china body rather then the opaque Silicon China one, and was in production from 1981 until 1999. These later items with the Doulton backstamp are still widely available, but are too recent to be of interest to many collectors.

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