An official mark made by the manufacturer on items made from pewter.
（打在白镴制品上的）制造者印记
Example sentencesExamples
No proper touch mark is apparent on this plate, and determining a specific date for its manufacture is impossible.
Note that the first 1763 is sideways to the rest of the inscription and under it are three touch marks.
On the underside of the cup are the touch marks of The Great Seal of the United States of America and acting President's initials.
Second, sprinkled throughout are illustrations from trade journals and manufacturer's catalogs, as well as touch marks and other materials which provide a visual impact to the information conveyed.
When used in this country it was most often incorporated into the pewterer's touch mark along with his name.
Little did these pewtersmiths of old realize how valuable touch marks would become to the modern collector.
If a touch mark includes a date, this is the date on which the pewterer set up in business, not the date on which the article was made.
In the majority of instances, the individual touch mark of women craftsmen was a diamond shape - the lozenge of heraldry - in which a woman's crest or cipher was framed.
Age and origin are critical and touch marks and design mean a lot.
The foot bar is impressed with the additional ‘T.C & H’ touch mark.
If there are three touch marks struck on the back of a plate or one on the front rim the piece is likely to be Continental.
While a touch mark may possibly be inherently distinctive (if the touch characteristic, properly defined, is unusual and unexpected in the context of the goods or services involved), it is more likely that evidence of distinctiveness acquired through use will have to be provided before a touch mark is registrable as a trademark or service mark.
Our own touch mark, a lion rampant, which appears on our hollowware, is modeled on that of Thomas Danforth II, who had six pewter smith sons.
We were reasonably confident that this was the touch mark of Simon Benning, for there were no parallels in the standard references on English pewterers.
Silver hallmarks, pewter touch marks, signatures on bronzes, foundry marks and engraved signatures on glass can all help to point you in the right direction.
Russian silversmiths used a touch mark with the initial letters of first and last name in Cyrillic.