By Porter Lang
Turn a piece of silver over and look for the stamps. A row of small shapes, none bigger than a grain of rice, is the nearest thing British metalwork has to a signed receipt. Most people glance at it. It repays a slower read.
What a hallmark is
Wikipedia defines a hallmark as an official mark, or series of marks, struck on metal items, mostly to certify the content of precious metals. The key phrase is that it must be a guarantee of purity or fineness. The same article adds a point worth remembering: a stamp such as 925 on its own is not a true hallmark if no independent authority attests to it.
The Birmingham Assay Office, writing on its own website, says only UK independent assay offices can apply hallmarks, and that hallmarks have been protecting consumers in the UK since 1327. That is an assay office describing itself, and the date is its claim.
The three marks that must be there
Both sources list the same compulsory three.
- The sponsor’s mark. It identifies the maker, manufacturer or business that sent the item for hallmarking. The assay office says it was formerly called the maker’s mark.
- The fineness mark. A number showing purity in parts per thousand. For example, 925 means about 92.5 per cent silver.
- The assay office mark. It shows where the item was tested.
Wikipedia gives the symbols for four offices: London, a leopard’s head; Birmingham, an anchor; Sheffield, a Yorkshire rose; Edinburgh, a castle.
The numbers
For silver, the assay office lists 800 (80 per cent, which it calls coin silver), 925 (sterling), 958 (the Britannia standard) and 999 (fine silver). For gold it lists 375 (9 carat), 585 (14 carat), 750 (18 carat), 916 (22 carat), and 990 and 999, with no carat equivalent given for the last two. Its main hallmarking page gives only 750 as its gold example, so we took the full list from the gold page.
Platinum and palladium numbers are not given on the pages we could read, so we have left them out.
The marks you can do without
Three marks are optional. Wikipedia names the lion passant for sterling silver, the date mark, and the Millennium mark, which was only available in 1999 and 2000. The assay office adds traditional fineness symbols, which must appear alongside the numeric mark, and commemorative marks.
- The lion passant means sterling silver, 925. The assay office says the lion rampant also means 925 but has been used only by the Edinburgh Assay Office since 1975. The Britannia figure means the 958 standard.
- A crown was the old symbol for gold, and the assay office warns it does not always mean gold: Sheffield’s own office mark was also a crown for a period.
- A date letter changes every year. Wikipedia says the 1999 revision made it no longer compulsory; the assay office says it was compulsory until 1999. The two agree. The assay office gives Z as the letter for 2024, and Wikipedia says that in England the date-letter year begins on 19 May.
Our reading: if a piece has no date letter, that tells you nothing wrong. It may be modern, and the letter is simply optional.
What gets hallmarked, and what does not
The assay office says hallmarking is a legal requirement for items described as silver, palladium, gold or platinum, and that the Hallmarking Act 1973 requires any commercial article in those metals to carry mandatory marks. There are exemptions based on the weight of the metal alone, excluding stones: silver under 7.78 grams, gold and palladium under 1 gram, platinum under 0.5 grams.
Wikipedia says the 1973 Act made Britain a member of the Vienna Convention and added marking for platinum. A July 2009 amendment brought in palladium from January 2010.
Common control marks
The Vienna Convention, signed in November 1972 according to Wikipedia, set up a Common Control Mark that attests to fineness. Its designs are balance scales on two intersecting circles for gold, a diamond shape for platinum and an M-shaped mark for silver. The assay office says the marks are recognised by countries in the International Hallmarking Convention, so items need not be marked again when they move between member countries. Wikipedia adds that some countries allow a variance of up to 10 parts per thousand from the marked fineness, and others allow none.
Wikipedia also says Birmingham has operated an offshore office in Mumbai, India, since July 2016, and that offshore marks must be distinguishable from marks struck in the UK.
Dates in order
- 1300: Edward I requires silver to meet the sterling standard and be marked with a leopard’s head after assay, according to Wikipedia.
- 1327: Edward III grants a charter to the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, according to Wikipedia.
- 1478: the Assay Office is established at Goldsmiths’ Hall and the date letter system begins in England, according to Wikipedia.
- 1544: a lion passant is added to English marks, according to Wikipedia.
- 1697: the Britannia standard becomes compulsory; sterling is restored in 1720, according to Wikipedia.
- 1784 to 1890: a tax on silverware, marked with the monarch’s head, according to Wikipedia.
- 1973: the Hallmarking Act, according to Wikipedia and the assay office.
- 1999: the date letter stops being compulsory.
- 2010: palladium joins the system.
Side by side
When did the London office begin? Wikipedia’s article on assay offices says it was founded around 1300. The hallmark article gives 1478 for the Assay Office at Goldsmiths’ Hall and 1300 for Edward I’s rule on silver. The Birmingham Assay Office points to 1327.
Questions a buyer would ask
Is there a sponsor’s mark, and does the seller know whose it is? Does the fineness number match what the piece is called? Which assay office struck it? Is the piece light enough to fall below the weight limit? Our reading: the answers come from the marks themselves, and they are free to ask.
What we left out
We left out every fee and the cost of testing. We left out the closed assay offices, because the source on them contradicted itself about how many remain. We left out the detail of testing methods beyond naming X-ray fluorescence, which the Birmingham office says it uses on gold.
Quick answers
What are the three compulsory marks in a UK hallmark? According to the Birmingham Assay Office, the sponsor’s mark, the fineness mark and the assay office mark.
Is a stamp saying 925 a hallmark? Not on its own, says Wikipedia: a true hallmark is attested by an independent authority.
Do small items need hallmarking? The assay office says silver under 7.78 grams, gold and palladium under 1 gram and platinum under 0.5 grams are exempt.
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