Herend has the world’s largest selection of products and they need to have a logical structure to be able to identify every product. There are more than 16.500 pcs Herend porcelain dinner set, tea set, coffee set, home decor and figurines in different sizes and forms. We need to be able to identify the shape and the decor of every item.
Did you know? Herend has never discontinued any decor or shape, so we can re-produce any piece if we know the product SKU or ID code.
On the bottom of every Herend porcelain product, you can see a Herend trademark. This is the Unique ID of the product. It doesn’t matter if you have an old or a new product, because with this number you can identify, reference or re-order the product.
Herend’s Code System
The structure of the numbers is the following:
00000-0-00 XXX
Five numbers – One number – two numbers – Characters.
The first five numbers (characters)
00000-0-00 XXX
This is the number of the Product ID. (Product-code)
With the help of these numbers, we can refer the different porcelain items and according to this, we can be sure that the porcelain we are talking about is the same.
The product ID consists of 5 numbers, but we are not necessarily using all of the characters for mark the item.
Let’s see a few examples:
– 00007-0-02 number 7 : indicates a Soup Tureen, which is 3.8 liter – (4 QT) (the number 2 means the Soup Tureen’s Branch Knob on the lid)
– 00051-0-05 number 51 indicates a Vegetable Dish, which is 2 liter – (2.1 QT) (the number 5 means the Vegetable Dish’s Bird Knob on the lid)
– 00182-0-00 number 182 is a Salad Dish with 1,4 liter – (1.5 QT)
– 02527-0-00 number 2527 is a Lisse formed Serving Plate with 27 cm diameter (10.6″D).
– 20724-0-00 number 20724 is a classical formed Tea Cup with Saucer
Is it a Dessert plate? An Animal figurine? A Vase? You know from the beginning.
For those who knows well the product ID codes, realizes immediately which kinds of porcelains are indicated by the numbers.
For example:
from 00508-0-00 to 00522-0-00 are Dessert plates with different diameters
from 05000-0-00 to 05999-0- are Animal and Human figurines in different sizes
from 06000-0-00 to 10000-0-00 are different kinds of Ornaments (e.g.: Bonbonniere, Tea caddy, Basket, Vase, Bowl and Candlesticks and Wall plates, etc)
The middle number
00000-0-00 XXX
This Part-code defines which part of the product are we talking about.
If a porcelain item has more separated porcelain elements (e.g. Soup Cup + Saucer + Lid), then the so-called “Part-code” helps to see which part of the porcelain we are talking about.
1 – Saucer – number 1 indicates the bottom of the product: Saucer
2 – The Soup cup (or main body)- number 2 indicates the middle part of the product: Soup cup
3 – Lid (or the top of the item)- number 3 indicates the top of the product: Lid
0 – Complete porcelain item- number 0 indicates all the 3 products together: Soup Cup + Saucer + Lid
7 – number 7 indicates the little opened part on the lid of the porcelain which helps using the spoon or ladle in a practical way. The hole for the spoons are on for example the Jam pot, the Soup tureen or the Sauce boat.
The last numbers – Knob-code
This is the number of the Knob-code.
Herend has more than 90 types of knobs. We need to specify which type do we want to order, and which is on our product. This is the meaning of the last two numbers.
00000-0-00 XXX
Here are some of the most often used knobs:
02 – Branch knob
03 – Lemon knob
05 – Bird knob
06 – Twisted knob
09 – Rose knob
12 – Bud knob
17 – Butterfly knob
18 – Dolphin knob
21 – Mandarin knob
31 – Acorn knob
67 – Cherry knob
etc…
In some special cases the last numbers mean something else.
50 – number 50 indicates that the porcelain is fixable on the wall (e.g. 8406-0-50 Wall Plate)
The Decor or Pattern
00000-0-00 XXX
- 00730-0-00 VBO (Tea Cup with Saucer) the VBO label means in the name of the porcelain products the Herend Pattern that is painted on the Tea cup.
- VBO is an abbreviation of the entire pattern’s name: Victoria avec Bord en or (Victoria pattern with Gold edge)
The names of the decors are defined traditionally in French since the institution of the Herend Manufactory. It is a tribute for the founders and for the spiritual heritage.
Let’s see a few more examples about the names of the pattern codes:
VRH – Vieille Rose de Herend (Viennese Rose)
RO-ETB – Rothschild Bird with Blue Fish-scale
SPROG – Sévres petites Roses en Or, Grand (Sevres Roses)
AB – Apponyi Blue (Chinese Bouquet Blue)
QS – Quatre Saisons (Four Seasons)
Additional signification:
X1 – means special
PT – means platinum painted instead of gold painting
Finally, you can find some additional security codes. These are useful to identify the items. This code contains information about the painter and the painting date. This code is classified, only the factory knows exactly what it really means.
