Hallmarking
Why it matters.....
Hallmarking is a fascinating subject and well worth researching if you have an interest in vintage or antique jewellery.
Precious metals used for making jewellery, gold, silver, platinum and palladium, are rarely used in their purest forms but are typically mixed with varying amounts of other metals to form alloys that are more durable and easier to work with, resulting in pieces of jewellery that will be more wearable and resilient. Hallmarks are marks applied to precious metal alloys to indicate the amount of pure metal in the alloy, expressed in parts per thousand, referred to as ‘fineness’. Generally, the higher the fineness, the higher the value, although age and rarity can also add value to a piece of jewellery.
A UK hallmark consists of a series of marks applied to articles of the precious metals platinum, gold, palladium and silver. The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office in the UK is where hallmarking began, dating back to the early 1300s, when the purity standards of gold and silver were set by a statute passed by King Edward I.
Initially there was just an assay mark denoting purity, and over the centuries other marks were added: a maker’s mark (in 1363), a date mark (in 1478) and a duty mark (from 1784 – 1890).
Today there are four Assay Offices in the UK, all are private companies overseen by the British hallmarking Council, not Government-run, and all of which have their own symbol: London has a leopard’s head, Birmingham an anchor, Sheffield a rose and Edinburgh a castle. Presence of a genuine hallmark on jewellery means that the article has been independently tested and acts as a guarantee that it conforms to all legal standards of purity (fineness). It also guarantees provenance by indicating where the piece was hallmarked, what the article is made from, and who sent the article for hallmarking.
The UK is one of only a few countries in the world that have compulsory statutory hallmarking. The current hallmarking legislation in the UK is The Hallmarking Act 1973 and it is an important piece of legislation protecting you the consumer.
Here are a few examples of exemptions:
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items which fall beneath the specified weight thresholds, which are 1 gram for gold, 7.78grams for silver, 0.5 grams for platinum and 1 gram for palladium.
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any pre-1975 item consisting entirely from precious metal filigree work.
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certain pre-1975 items specified in the Act, such as items made from platinum or gold rings (excluding wedding rings).
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any pre-1950 item may now be described and sold as precious metal without a hallmark of the seller can prove that it is of minimum fineness and was manufactured before 1950.
Under this Act, every item sold as precious metal, i.e. gold, silver, platinum or palladium, must have been tested and hallmarked by an independent third-party Assay Office to guarantee that the precious metal is of the fineness stated, and this law applies to everything sold in the UK regardless of where it may have been manufactured, unless an exemption applies.
Every piece of jewellery offered by Elizabeth Roy Charms that is not hallmarked is tested for fineness and will be clearly identified as such in the description of the piece.
It is a legal requirement under The Hallmarking Act 1973 for every person "dealing" in precious metal to display the statutory Dealers Notice, which you can see by using the button below