Antique Porcelain Marks on Chinese CeramicsMost of the antique porcelain marks or pottery marks that the beginning collector will encounter on ancient Chinese ceramics are originating in the Ming or Qing dynasty, or are from the republic period. Few of us will ever be able to lay hands on marked porcelain of the Song or even the Yuan dynasty. They are extremely rare.
Some Chinese antiques' porcelain marks or pottery marks contain dates of the Chinese 60 year cyclic calendar, but these are actually quite rare. Cyclic calendar dates started to appear mainly on Qianjiang-style dated porcelain in the second half of the 19th century. But these are not marks proper, but rather part of the signatures of porcelain artists. Antiques' porcelain marks more often than not show the emperor's reign title (period name). During the Kangxi reign pictorial marks were popular, symbol marks and double circles were especially frequent. These had already existed earlier, but only in a limited manner. Otherwise, the majority of antique porcelain marks consisted of of hand-written characters.  Character marks and even seal marks were usually hand-written or hand-painted individually. Only in the later Qing dynasty (19th century) stamped seal marks started to appear more frequently. The imperial marks used during the Qianlong reign, for example, were written by hand in archaic "seal-style" characters (Kaiti or Kaishu) with or without a hand-painted frame depicting the square seal edge. This is exactly the same way seal characters are/were written before carving or engraving the characters in a seal.  Needless to say that the ancient characters used in such seal type porcelain marks are not the normal characters used in everyday writing of the Chinese language. This ancient character type was and is mainly used with seals (even today) and is more difficult to read, even for a Chinese person. It takes some practice to recognize this type of characters in porcelain marks.Official (imperial) kilns: Basically, the number of types of antique porcelain marks used for ceramics manufactured in the official kilns during each reign period is limited. These kilns operated under the supervision of court officials and everything, including the decoration, was strictly regulated. The usage of marks on these was also restricted by the court, and this in turn did not allow for the multitude of marks used by private kilns (Minyao).
See list showing predominant mark style for each Qing dynasty reign.
Continuing the legacy of the Ming period, most Kangxi wares used Kaiti (Kaishu) marks. The antique porcelain marks remaining show that only about 5% of all marks were written in Zhuanti characters during that reign. Private kilns: The many types of antiques porcelain marks from private kilns show that private kilns were generally more open to free expression. Their content shows more diverse information or traditional symbolic meanings inherent to Chinese culture: Apart from the marks containing the reign name, there is a wealth of other marks with content that cannot be used for dating purposes. For example, the name of the shop or manufactory given is not useful in any way for dating Chinese ceramics. Or, a certain type of mark from the the Ming and especially the Qing dynasty is frequently found on porcelain made to order for officials or persons of high rank. Some antique porcelain marks identify the name of the buyer (or recipient), or did contain a dedication for the recipient when an item was a gift. However, all these cannot be used for dating ceramics. Frequently auspicuous characters, words or symbols, and a wide variety of other content meaningful in the context of Chinese culture was integrated in marks. Quite clearly, the purpose of the antique porcelain marks and their diverse usage was not in any manner similar to usage in Europe.  Towards the end of the Qing dynasty and during the republic period ceramics were also increasingly signed or marked by the artists decorating these. Examples are Wang Bing Rong, a well-known potter of the 19th century, or the famous "Eight Friends of Zhushan" a group that was active from the late Qing dynasty until far into the 20th century, just to mention a few, who did sign their works. A transition from a mere kiln artisan to an artist was in the making. Right image: Tongzhi (1862-1874) period bowl with lid. Both are decorated with pictures and verses at the outside. The bowl shows the year according to the year using the Chinese 60 year cyclic year. See dated porcelain. Both bowl and lid have artist and reign marks. Export porcelain: The majority of the porcelain made specifically for export did not have any marks. Ceramics with marks were often not made specifically for export but were added to a shipping batch anyway. Systematic marking of export porcelain did not begin before the late 19th century. In the 1890s export porcelain was marked with "China" for the first time, due to a new import regulation of the United States requiring that the country of origin had to be stated on imported items. Antique Porcelain Marks and Pottery Marks, Signed Porcelain
The following two types of antique markings are NOT manufacturing marks: Black, hand-written text found on the unglazed bottom of some older ceramics.
This cannot be emphasized enough: Don't get fixated on the antique porcelain marks when it comes to Chinese porcelain.
Probably the best example for this is the porcelain made during the late Qing dynasty. In the Guangxu period huge amounts of porcelain China were produced, and many of these bear dfferent Kangxi reign marks. In addition to this there are Qing dynasty marks that appear both in the early days of the dynasty and again toward its end, but not in between. Many porcelain pieces produced in the early republic period bear a Qianlong reign mark. This said, for the serious collector or dealer of porcelain a good reference book as source of antique porcelain marks is an indispensable requirement for identifying porcelain. If you read Chinese, you have an even better choice of mark books.
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Burial items - often personal items were buried with the deceased. The date and name of the deceased can be written with a brush in black, mostly on the bottom of the object.
these markings just served to recognize ownership of the concerned item(s) on occasions when communal use of plates or bowls was required.