Fire mark for Bristol Universal Fire Office – £4400 at Special Auction services.
The practice of placing a metal mark on a building to indicate insurance against a fire started in earnest after the Great Fire of London (1666). Each insurance company had its own fire service and distinctive logo.
Early marks, pinned high to walls of insured houses, were made of lead with later examples typically in copper and tinned iron until production largely stopped in the 1840s.