HALLMARKING

The earliest recorded instances of hallmarking originated within the city of London in 1238. King Henry III attempted at regulating the standards of gold and silver wares by passing an order, commanding the mayor and aldermen of the City of London to choose six of the most trustworthy and discreet goldsmith to superintend the precious metals craft. But it wasn’t until 1300 when Edward I passed a statute titled "Vessels of Gold shall be essayed, touched, and marked. The King’s Prerogative shall be saved” for the purpose of preventing the frauds being committed by goldsmiths at the time. The appointed ‘Guardians of the Craft’ were to travel from workshop to workshop and assay all gold and silver work, silver had to be of Sterling standard (92.5% pure silver) and gold had to be of the ‘touch of Paris’ (19.2 carats minimum) if the work met this criteria it would be hand struck by the Guardians with the depiction of a leopards head.

The purpose of hallmarking has remained the same for hundreds of years, to protect buyers of precious metal items against fraud. Today the hallmark is struck by hand keeping with tradition or laser etched for a modern adaptation. These markings guarantee that the item has been independently tested and verified as matching its description, and conforming to all legal standards of purity or fineness of the metal. In England this process is to be completed at either the London, Birmingham, Edinburgh or Sheffield Assay Office’s and requires a registered jewellers account.

All items (over a certain weight depending on the alloy) sold in the UK and described as being made from gold, silver, platinum or palladium must have a legally recognised hallmark. The law is currently set out in the Hallmarking Act passed in 1973 a law of which has been amended and updated since its inception in 1300.

A complete hallmark consists of three compulsory marks.

‍This is the registered mark of the company or individual that submits the item for hallmarking. Manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and importers can all be sponsors. In the UK, this mark has at least 2 letters, and all marks are unique like a fingerprint, providing a key link to the origin of the pieces creator.

‍This mark displays the precious metal content in the item, recorded in parts per thousand. This means that the number tells you the proportion of precious metal content in the alloy. For example, the fineness mark of 9 carat gold is 375. This tells us that the alloy must have at least 375 parts gold per 1,000. The shape surrounding this number indicates the metal type, which you can observe in the diagram below.

‍This mark displays in which of the four Assay Office’s in the UK it was tested and hallmarked.

‍Precious metals, such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium, are rarely used in their purest form. They are mixed with other metals to form an alloy that has the desired colour and strength. It is very difficult to know what an item of jewellery is made of just by looking at it or touching it. Hallmarking protects consumers by certifying the precious metal content of the piece so that the buyer knows that the item is genuinely what the seller says it is. Online selling of jewellery increases the risk to consumers, but the hallmark gives the buyer confidence that the products are genuinely what they say they are.