Royal Copenhagen Value: Marks, Blue Fluted, Flora Danica, Plates

Most Royal Copenhagen porcelain sells for about $15-150 a piece as of October 2026. Christmas plates from the 1950s onward bring $10-30, Blue Fluted Plain cups and plates $15-50, and figurines $40-200. The high end is Flora Danica, the hand-painted botanical service still made in Copenhagen, where single plates sell for roughly $500-2,500, and the earliest Christmas plates, with the 1908 first plate reported around $1,200 and dealers asking more.

Royal Copenhagen has made porcelain since 1775 and marks almost everything with the same three blue waves. That makes a piece easy to recognize as Royal Copenhagen, but the mark alone does not make it valuable. The pattern, the age, the size and whether the waves have been scratched through, the factory sign of a second, decide the price.

Quick answer

• Christmas plates 1950s to today: about $10-30. Early plates, 1909 to the 1920s: roughly $50-250, sales are thin. The 1908 first plate has sold around $1,200, with dealers asking up to about $3,000.
• Blue Fluted Plain cups, saucers and plates: about $15-50. Blue Fluted Full Lace: roughly $50-150 a plate.
• Figurines: about $40-200 for common models, roughly $200-600 for large or scarce ones.
• Flora Danica: roughly $500-2,500 a plate at auction depending on size, more for serving pieces.
• Seconds, marked by a fine line cut through the waves, sell for about 20-40 percent less.

How do I identify and value Royal Copenhagen, step by step?

1. Find the three waves. Royal Copenhagen pieces carry three wavy lines in underglaze blue. According to the company history on Wikipedia, they stand for Denmark's three waterways: the Great Belt, the Little Belt and the Øresund.
2. Read the rest of the mark. From the late 1800s most pieces also carry a crown, often with "Royal Copenhagen" and "Denmark" or "Danmark" printed around it. A mark with the waves alone and no crown is usually older.
3. Check for a scratch through the waves. A fine line cut through the three waves, usually with a diamond tool, marks a factory second, sold at a discount because of a small glaze or painting flaw.
4. Read the numbers. Most pieces have a pattern and shape number written as two numbers separated by a slash, and many hand-painted pieces carry a painter's mark or initials. On Blue Fluted, the number separates the Plain, Half Lace and Full Lace versions, which sell at very different prices.
5. Name the line. Blue Fluted (Musselmalet) is pattern No. 1, made since 1775. Flora Danica shows botanical paintings with their Latin names on the back. Christmas plates are dated and titled. Figurines have model numbers on the base. Other dinnerware patterns include Blue Flower, Blue Fluted Mega, Princess and Star Fluted.
6. Check for Bing & Grøndahl. Royal Copenhagen bought Bing & Grøndahl in 1987. B&G pieces carry a different mark, three towers, and their own Christmas plate series that began in 1895.
7. Check condition. Look at rims and the lace edges on Full Lace for chips, the gilding on Flora Danica for wear, and figurine ears, tails and extremities for repairs.
8. Price from sold results for the same pattern, form and size. Replacement and new retail prices are much higher than the secondary market.

What is Royal Copenhagen worth?

Sold ranges as of October 2026 for first-quality pieces without damage. New retail and replacement prices run much higher.

These are honest secondary-market ranges. Royal Copenhagen is still made and sold new at retail prices that are often several times the resale price, especially for Blue Fluted and Flora Danica. That gap is the most common source of disappointment when people sell.

What does the three wave mark tell me about age?

The mark gives an era rather than a year. The waves have been used since the earliest years, but the details around them changed.

• Waves alone, hand painted in blue, with no crown: generally 19th century or earlier.
• Crown over the waves with "Royal Copenhagen" printed in a circle: from about 1889 into the 1920s.
• "Denmark" or "Danmark" added: from about 1894 onward, mostly 20th century.
• Small lines or dots near the mark: many 20th-century pieces carry them as a date code, and the tables in collector references decode them by period.
• "Made in Denmark" or "Hand painted" in English with a modern logo: late 20th century onward.
• Marks with a country other than Denmark, on newer Blue Fluted, reflect later production moved abroad. These are current pieces, not antiques.

Since 2012 Royal Copenhagen has been owned by Fiskars, the Finnish group, according to Wikipedia.

How do factory firsts and seconds differ?

Royal Copenhagen inspected every piece. A first passed with no visible flaw and kept an unmarked wave mark. A second had a small flaw, such as a speck in the glaze, a slightly uneven painting or a firing mark, and the factory cut a short line through the waves before selling it, at a discount usually reported as about 25-30 percent. The line can be very faint, so tilt the base under a lamp or run a fingernail across the waves.

Seconds are real Royal Copenhagen and are perfectly usable, but collectors pay less for them. Expect about 20-40 percent below a first for the same piece, more on figurines and Christmas plates, where buyers want firsts. Always photograph the mark close up so a buyer can see whether it is scratched.

Which Royal Copenhagen pieces are worth the most?

Flora Danica is the top of the line. Crown Prince Frederik ordered the original service in 1790 as a gift for Catherine the Great of Russia, who died in 1796 before it was finished. Each piece copies a plant from the Flora Danica botanical atlas, with the plant's Latin name on the back, and every piece is still painted by hand. Even used, a single plate sells for several hundred dollars and often well over a thousand: six late 20th-century dinner plates made EUR 3,840 at Dorotheum in 2019, about EUR 640 each with fees.

After that come the early Christmas plates, especially 1908 and the plates of the 1910s, large or scarce figurines from the first half of the 20th century, Blue Fluted Full Lace serving pieces, and art pottery and stoneware by named designers. Most families own the other end: a few Christmas plates, some Blue Fluted cups and a figurine or two.

Condition and what changes the price

A worked example

Say you inherit a stack of blue and white plates with pictures of Danish winter scenes. Each has a year on the front, from 1962 to 1985, and the back shows the crown and three waves with "Royal Copenhagen Denmark". None of the marks is scratched. These are the annual Christmas plates, first quality. Plates from these years sell for about $10-30 each, so a run of 24 is a $200-500 lot, and many sell as a group for less. Now say one plate in the stack is dated 1912 with a hand-painted wave mark and no crown. That one is roughly $75-300 on its own, depending on condition, and is worth checking against sold results for that year.

Common mistakes

• Pricing from new retail. Royal Copenhagen's retail prices are not what used pieces sell for.
• Missing the scratch on the mark. A second sells for less, and buyers will notice.
• Assuming every Christmas plate is valuable. Plates from the 1950s on were made in very large numbers.
• Confusing Bing & Grøndahl with Royal Copenhagen. They are separate makers with separate series, though now one company.
• Confusing Blue Fluted with copies. Many factories made similar blue fluted patterns, including Meissen-style "Zwiebelmuster" onion patterns. Check the waves.
• Ignoring figurine repairs. Ears, tails and hands are often glued and lower value sharply.

How WorthPic reads Royal Copenhagen photos

WorthPic runs on the newest and most capable AI model available, tuned for exactly this kind of identification. From a clear photo of the base it reads the three waves, the crown and wording, any line through the mark, the pattern and shape number, and the painter's mark. From the front it reads the pattern, the Christmas plate year and title, the figurine model, and visible condition. It then gives an honest value range for that pattern, form and quality, with a most likely figure.

What it cannot know from photos is a restoration that is well hidden, a hairline crack, or a faint scratch through the waves if the light is wrong. When something needs checking by hand, it says so and asks for the photo that settles it. It identifies and estimates. It does not authenticate, grade or appraise.

What to photograph

• The base mark, sharp and straight on, with light from the side so any scratch through the waves shows.
• The numbers and painter's mark near the waves.
• The front in daylight, filling the frame.
• Lace edges and rims close up.
• Figurines from several angles, with ears, tails and hands close up.
• For Flora Danica, the Latin plant name on the back.

When should you get it looked at in person?

Christmas plates from the 1950s on and everyday Blue Fluted do not need an appraiser. A sold-results check is enough. Flora Danica, Christmas plates from 1908 to the 1910s, large early figurines and pieces with an unfamiliar mark are worth showing to an auction house with a Scandinavian design or European ceramics department; Danish auction houses handle Royal Copenhagen every week. For other figurine makers often found alongside it, see our guides to Royal Doulton figurines, Lladró and Hummel, and for other blue and white china, Blue Willow.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Royal Copenhagen: the 1775 founding, the meaning of the three waves, Blue Fluted as pattern No. 1, the 1908 Christmas plate start, the 1987 Bing & Grøndahl purchase and Fiskars ownership.
• Wikipedia: Flora Danica: the 1790 order for Catherine II, her death in 1796, and and Royal Copenhagen still selling the pattern.
• LoveToKnow: most valuable collector plates (updated 2023): the 1908 Royal Copenhagen Christmas plate at about $1,200 and Bing & Grøndahl's 1895 first plate.
• 1stDibs: how to tell Royal Copenhagen seconds: the fine line cut through the waves.
• C20 Ceramics: seconds marks: the short line etched through the waves and the 25-30 percent factory discount.