I mentioned hallmarking in my last post, but I’m going to talk a bit more about it today. I hope this will be useful and explain a little bit about the different marks that you’ll see on jewellery from time to time.
Hallmarking in the UK has been around for hundreds of years. It’s one of the first ways that consumers were protected from unscrupulous sellers passing off low value goods for precious metals.
In the UK it is illegal to sell metal items as precious metal if they are above a certain weight and have not been hallmarked.
The precious metal which I use most often is silver, but the same principles apply to gold, platinum and palladium.
If any of my silver jewellery weighs more than 7.78g I cannot sell it as silver without getting it hallmarked, I have to sell it as “white metal”. I work hard on my jewellery and my customers deserve to know exactly what they’re getting. I make my materials clear in my shop and I would be undervaluing my work and disrespecting consumers if I didn’t stick to the rules. The hallmark provides proof that the metal in the jewellery has been tested by an independant assay office and that their tests on the metal have confirmed that it’s not just a thinly plated item, or a bit of tin masquerading as silver.
A UK hallmark has several parts to it – take a look at your favourite gold or silver piece and see if you can find the hallmark. It may be tiny, but if you have an item made in the UK there should be a mark.
Here’s one of mine from a recent batch of things sent to Sheffield Assay Office.
Ignore the dodgy photo – it needs polishing and photographing properly before it goes into the shop!
Tiny isn’t it! But you should be able to make out the different bits that make up a full UK hallmark.
Here’s a close up – a bit fuzzy but it should do for this post.
The first bit is my sponsors mark – that shows who submitted the metal to the assay office. Mine is a gem shape with my initals (SE for Sharon Elliott)
Hmmm, not too clear on that pic – I’ll try another one.
Maybe a little better – you can see the initials and the shape in the sponsors mark.
OK, the next bit has numbers – 925 in an oval shape – the fineness mark. The shape tells you the type of metal, in this case silver, and the number the purity in parts per thousand. That means that the silver in this pendant is 925 parts silver to 75 parts something else. In other words, standard sterling silver. The shape and numbers of this mark are different for different metals and different quality standards, but easy to find on the net if you’re interested – try here .
The next few marks are really hard to make out. The third bit along is a rose – that’s the symbol for Sheffield Assay Office. The fourth is the “lion passant” a symbol for sterling silver, and the fifth is a date letter – this one is l for 2010.
If your UK made jewellery weighs more than 7.78g for silver, 1g for gold or 0.5g for platinum and doesn’t have a minimum of the sponsors mark, fineness mark and assay office mark it hasn’t been hallmarked in the UK and may not be what it says it is.
But don’t panic – if your items are under the weight exemption they don’t need to be hallmarked, and a quality stamp is often added by the maker – a stamp with 925 (or the relevant number) and it’s fairly common to see that especially with silver as often small necklaces, pendants and earrings come below the required weight.
Do I hallmark everything I make? Well, at the moment, no I don’t. I hallmark the items which are legally required to be marked and sometimes if I have smaller items around when I’m sending those larger items to the Assay Office I might include them too. It costs money to add a hallmark, there’s a minimum charge and for small pieces it could really bump up the cost to you.
I hope this makes hallmarking a little bit clearer, but, if you want to ask about any of my items and hallmarking then please get in touch – I’m happy to help if I can.
