Buyer guide
Reading craft quality: handmade, hand-finished and machine-made
Very little in the modern craft trade is entirely hand-made, and very little is entirely machine-made. The commercially useful question is which operations were done by hand and whether the description given to the end customer is defensible. This guide sets out the visible markers for each major category — the reverse of a rug, the seam of a blown glass piece, the tool marks inside a carved bowl — and the language buyers can use in specifications so that the claim on the label matches the process in the workshop.
Explore further
| The current practice | Explore → |
| Worked examples | Explore → |
| Common mistakes | Explore → |
| Country differences | Explore → |
| Templates and checklists | Explore → |
| Who to ask for help | Explore → |