ID ideas please Maltese Lion Faced Tankard

I bought this tankard with great looking lion mask and tail. Marked MALTA E.P. or L.P. any thoughts on ID please. Thanks John

I think its Bristows Pottery

Thanks Davee, Bristow's was my first thought but all the pieces I have seen before were marked with Bristows name

I have my doubts of this mug being made by Bristow Pottery to be honest.

The pieces I have seen have always had the mark incised and usually with the b p monogram.

As the base of the mug reads Malta bp, I thought that was a logical conclusion.

Oh well I suppose if you've never seen one marked like this Potty then it must be something else. Any ideas?

I am fairly certain that this reads "EP" rather than bp

I have no idea then, maybe it was made elsewhere to be sold on Malta as a souvenier piece

As far as I can tell it could be marked BP.

But even then it would rings bells, as apart from the much later (post Malta period) TB monogram that was used between 2001-2004, I believe the b p monogram was always in lower case. (The pottery at Malta was running during 1968-1970 from what I understand, the reason for them moving there would have been due to the incentives that the Government of Malta were offering business investors at the time)

Usually the mark is a b above a p, rather than side by side.

The monogram would also usually proceed the pottery's location. e.g :-

b
p
Shanklin

Having wrote all that I did a quick Google search, only to find out that there is still a Bristow Pottery running in Malta, so it may well be a pottery under the same name after Tony Bristow sold up, due to difficulty with work permits etc, after a change in Government policy. The website also has a connection to Mdina Glass, which would make sense since Mike Harris occupied the adjacent building to Tony Bristow, during his time in Malta.

Other than that I would say souvenir piece