We know from the archaeological record that silver has been mined for thousands of years across many ancient civilisations, where skilled craftsmen smelted it and worked it to produce beautiful jewellery and fabulous decorative items.
Guild silversmiths c1901
That desire to make stunning silver items lives on today. Pure silver itself is generally too soft to make durable articles so it is alloyed, most often with copper, to give the final products more flexibility, strength and longevity.
Nobody, no matter how experienced, can look at a silver article and tell how much is silver and how much is copper, or whether the article is really just base metal with a thick coating of silver over the top. And yet of course this matters – the more copper and less silver the lower the value of the product. This offers unscrupulous people a huge opportunity for fraud and so there is a need to protect customers and legitimate suppliers.
Indeed, hallmarking is the earliest form of consumer protection. Under a Statute instituted by Edward I over 700 years ago, the UK requires finished silver articles to be sent to an independent Assay Office to be tested for their fineness, measured in parts per 1000 and then hallmarked if they are above the minimum fineness required by law. The most common standard in the UK is known as Sterling Silver, a fineness 925 parts per 1000 by weight of silver.
Birmingham Assay Office
The hallmark is your independent guarantee of the precious metal content of the silver you are buying, guaranteed by the Assay Office. In order for a trader to send silver articles to an Assay Office, the trader must register with the Assay Office of their choice and also register a unique punch mark known as the Sponsors Mark. The Assay Offices are required by law to maintain a register of Sponsors Marks so they can provide traceability on the silver market over hundreds of years.
In addition to the Sponsors Mark, the Assay Office will punch its own Assay Office Mark, and a Standard Mark showing the fineness of the silver, so for Sterling Silver this is a ‘925’ stamp or in the past a lion symbol. Up until 1975 the Assay Offices also stamped a Date Letter to tell you the year in which it was hallmarked, though this is now voluntary. Special hallmarks have been produced for commemorative events including Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022 and the Coronation of King Charles in 2023. The Guild of Handicraft have their own ‘GofH’ Sponsors Mark which Harts still use today. Since their move to Chipping Campden in 1902 the Guild’s silversmiths have continued to send their silver to London for the Assay Office to apply the distinctive ‘Leopard’s Head’ as part of the complete hallmark.
The Guild of Handicraft hallmark
You may also be interested in these articles:
Exhibition: Guild of Handicraft – Hart of Campden
Limited edition silver vase by Harts
