People think collecting studio pottery starts with memorising potters’ marks. It starts with your hands.
Pick the pot up. Feel the weight — a good thrown pot is lighter than it looks, balanced around its middle. Run a thumb over the foot ring: a well-turned foot, trimmed clean and slightly chamfered, is the signature that matters before any stamp.
Buy the pot you keep walking back to, not the mark the book told you to want.
The marks come later, and by then you will already own the beginnings of a shelf you love.