Gold and silver jewellery hallmarking in Great Britain.

Most jewellery made in England, from 1300 to the present day, was and is obliged by law to carry a hallmark which guarantees the metal’s quality. The laws are rather confusing, and in some cases complicated, but one fact stands out as being of prime importance – owning unmarked jewellery is not an offence against the law, but selling it is (or even offering it for sale). Should an owner wish to sell an unmarked piece, he should have it hallmarked at once. Hallmarks need not be applied at the moment of making, but must be applied before the moment of selling. Naturally in such a case the hallmark would give a contemporary date, not the date of actual manufacture, for each date-letter punch is destroyed at the end of its yearly period to prevent any suggestion of forgery. If the piece were an antique, its value would be considerably reduced by the modern date-letter, but at least it would now have a mark and be saleable.

However, there are exemptions. Certain jewellery may be offered for sale even though they are not hallmarked. Some chains are exempt – watch-chains, albert, dress-chains, key and fob chains; but almost all other chains have to be marked.

Generally, gold and silver jewellery should be marked with the date-letter of the current year, the town mark, the maker’s mark and the quality mark. These marks are made by punches which are struck with a hammer to impress the mark into the metal.

In Great Britain there are four legal standards for gold: 22 carat, 18 carat, 14 carat and 9 carat. A variety of metals can be used to ally gold; copper, for instance, nickel, zinc, cadmium, iron and aluminium. Each of them gives a slightly different colour to the resulting metal. Red gold is alloyed with copper, green gold with silver and cadmium, white gold with nickel or palladium, blue gold with iron, purple gold with aluminium, and lilac gold with zinc.

There are two legal standards of silver which are indicated by the quality mark. Sterling silver is the minimum standard allowed by law, and is 925 parts pure silver to 75 parts other metal, the alloying metal generally being copper. The other standard is Britannia standard silver, which is 958 parts pure and is carefully marked with an extra mark.

The town mark on silver or gold indicates the place where it was assayed. In the past there have been quite a few towns other than London which have had assay offices, but nowadays there are only three: Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh.

The date-letter changes annually, though the date of the actual change varies from one assay office to another. It consists of a single letter of the alphabet-a variety of forms is used-enclosed in a shield (different shapes of shield are also employed).

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