The SylvaC Collectors Circle owns approximately 99% of the original SylvaC moulds that remained when the company ceased trading in 1982.  Many have now been destroyed but unfortunately, during 1998, copies of original SylvaC items appeared on the collecting scene.  In the main they were copied from Shaw and Copestake finished items, but in some instances, have been reproduced from a very small number of the genuine moulds.  We do, of course, regularly make SylvaC club members aware of changes, as and when these replicas appear.  Please be alert, also, to the fact that there are certain individuals on the internet advertising "modern SylvaC" pieces as "rare", or "unique" and, in many cases, not stating anywhere that the items are not original Shaw and Copestake SylvaC.  "Rare", or "unique" SylvaC, to collectors, would indicate an original pre-1982 piece, not previously seen or offered for sale - not a modern, post-1997 replica. 

Many of these modern replicas, or "fakes" as collectors describe them, have on them the backstamp illustrated below.  Some of them are, in fact, made from moulds previously owned by other potteries (not SylvaC), now no longer in existence.  Therefore, if an item is seen with that mark on it, it is likely to be a post-1997 piece, with absolutely no connection at all to the original (i.e. 1894 to 1982) Shaw and Copestake Ltd. SylvaC.

During 2005 the Sylvan Works was sold but, by that time, all the moulds that were of any interest to SylvaC collectors had been removed and safely stored at another pottery. The remainder of them, a fraction of the original number bought by the SCC, were destroyed (many skip loads!!). The factory buildings were divided into individual units and the whole site is now known as the "Sylvan Centre". 

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