The agency of branding and the location of value. Hallmarks and monograms in early modern tableware industries

Abstract

This article addresses early modern guild-based hallmarks from the perspective of modern branding. Although guilds could have firm-like functions and create ‘brand names’, collective marks at least in ‘strong guilds’ (on the continent) served a primarily socio-political function for small manufacturing masters who controlled and sanctioned branding practices themselves. While helping to solve problems of information asymmetry, the collective marks objectified product quality by locating it in the political standing and ‘quality’ of guild-based masters. The crucial shift at the end of the Ancien Régime involved the disappearance of this link between the status of urban ‘freemen’ and the cultural identity of their products.