![]() ![]() Since the 1930s, a symbol has been specially designed for each royal jubilee and coronation, and a commemorative hallmark was also created in 1999 to celebrate the millennium. It’s quite a nice detail to have, isn’t it?įrom time to time, temporary hallmarks become available to commemorate significant events. Since 1999, including the date letter hasn’t been compulsory but it’s still widely used. The system cycles through the alphabet, but you can still tell different years apart because the font varies and letters switch between uppercase and lowercase. Hallmarking has been going on in the UK for over 700 years, ever since the hallmarking statute of 1300 – it’s probably the oldest form of customer protection in the world that’s still in place today.Įach year is represented by a letter of the alphabet (2020 is a V and 2021 is a W). I’m registered with the London Office, which has a leopard head as its symbol. There are four assay offices in the UK, and each one has its own symbol so that you can trace which one applied the hallmark: Birmingham, London, Edinburgh or Sheffield. (The remaining 75/1000 is usually made from copper, which helps to add a little strength to the metal. Here’s where that 925 finally fits in, and you can trust it’s truthful when it’s been stamped by an Assay Office! The number refers to how much of the metal is silver, so 925 means 925/1000 parts (92.5%) of the metal are silver. This mark is optional now, but it used to be the traditional way of knowing the purity of the metal. The fineness mark tells you what the metal is: sterling silver is a little lion, gold is a little crown and platinum is a little orb. Silver Hallmarks: Traditional Fineness Mark (And if you don’t hallmark when you should, the fines are up to £5000 per piece!) This means that jewellers have to be registered with an Assay Office, and then we pay a fee for each piece to be assessed and marked.įor sterling silver, anything over 7.78g has to be hallmarked, and for gold, it’s anything over 1g. However, once a piece is over a certain weight, it’s a legal requirement to have it officially hallmarked by an Assay Office. Hallmarking for Silver and Gold JewelleryĪny piece can be hallmarked if you want it to be, but smaller items are optional. It has at least 3 marks (sometimes more: mine has 5) which can give you a lot more clues about your jewellery than simply whether it’s true silver or not. If you really want to know if something’s proper silver, you’ll need to look for an official hallmark. Most people think that’s the thing that proves a piece really is genuine silver… but actually, someone could just buy a 925 stamp and add it on to any silver-coloured or silver-plated metal! ![]() When we say ‘hallmarked silver’, you might be picturing that little 925 symbol that’s often stamped on silver jewellery. ![]()
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