Hallmarks

• Rolled gold Rolled Gold, Gold Filled and Plated: Reading the Marks on the Layer RG, GF, 1/20 12K, vermeil and electroplate all mean gold over another metal, in very different thicknesses. What each mark promises and how to tell them apart.
• Marriages Marriages and Conversions: When a Piece Is Not What It Was Brooches become pendants, seals become rings, old stones move into new mounts. How to spot a married or converted piece, and when it matters to the price.
• Georg Jensen Georg Jensen Marks: How to Date Danish Silver by Its Stamp Georg Jensen silver is dated by which company mark it carries. The 1904 to 1932 marks, the 1933 to 1944 oval, the post-1945 dotted oval, design numbers and the fakes.
• Norwegian silver David-Andersen and Norwegian Enamel: Reading the Marks Norwegian silver enamel jewelry by David-Andersen, Marius Hammer and J. Tostrup carries datable marks and 925S or 830S standards. How to identify makers, styles and condition.
• Charles Horner Charles Horner: The Hatpin Maker Who Marked Everything Charles Horner of Halifax made hatpins, pendants and thimbles in silver and enamel, nearly all hallmarked at Chester. The marks, the designs and how to spot a genuine C.H.
• Hallmarks Why Is My Jewelry Not Hallmarked? The Honest Reasons for Missing Marks Weight exemptions, countries without compulsory marking, worn and resized-away stamps, and eras before the law: the legitimate reasons genuine pieces carry no hallmarks.
• Hallmarks What Is an Assay Office? The Institution Behind Every Hallmark An assay office is the institution that tests precious metal and strikes the hallmark. How assaying worked, from touchstone to XRF, and why the system has lasted seven centuries.
• Watch cases Watch Case Hallmarks: Dating a Watch From Its Shell Watch cases were assayed like any precious metal, so case backs carry full hallmark rows, date letters included. How to open, read and cross-check case marks against movements.
• Silver Silver Standards Explained: Sterling, Britannia, 830 and the Rest Sterling, Britannia, continental 800 and 830, Russian zolotniks: the silver standards, what each number promises, and how to read them across countries and eras.
• Sheffield plate Sheffield Plate vs EPNS: Two Silvers That Are Not Silver Old Sheffield plate is silver fused to copper and rolled; EPNS is electroplated nickel silver. A century apart in technique, worlds apart in value, and easy to tell apart once shown.
• Pseudo-hallmarks Pseudo-Hallmarks: The Marks That Only Look Official Pseudo-hallmarks imitate the look of official marks without being any system's real punches. Hanau silver, colonial pseudo-marks and fantasy stamps, and how to tell homage from fraud.
• Platinum Platinum Hallmarks: The Marks of the Youngest Precious Metal Platinum was jewelry's favourite metal decades before most systems hallmarked it. The orb mark from 1975, the French dog's head, 950 standards, and how to read unmarked platinum eras.
• Maker's marks Maker's Marks Explained: Finding the Hands Behind the Initials The maker's mark names the workshop that made or sponsored a piece. How to read initials, lozenges and symbols, and how registered mark databases turn two letters into a name and working years.
• Photography How to Photograph a Hallmark So It Can Actually Be Read Most unidentified hallmarks are just badly photographed. Raking light, a steady phone, macro technique and the two-millimetre workflow that turns blurry stamps into readable evidence.
• Gilding Gilding Through the Ages: Fire, Leaf, Vermeil and the Electric Revolution Mercury fire-gilding, gold leaf, vermeil and electrogilding each leave different evidence on antique metal. How the techniques worked, how to tell them apart, and what the law made of them.
• Fake hallmarks Fake Hallmarks: How Marks Are Forged, and How They Are Caught Cast copies, transposed marks and outright forged punches all exist. The inspection habits that catch them: wear logic, seams, coherence checks and testing the metal the marks sit on.
• Duty marks The Duty Mark: How a Tax Stamp Became a Dating Tool From 1784 to 1890 British assay offices struck the reigning sovereign's head to show duty had been paid. The duty mark's presence, absence and profile all date pieces with unusual force.
• Date letters Date Letters Explained: How One Stamped Letter Names a Year Date letter systems assign each year a letter of the alphabet, cycling with changed fonts and shields. How the British, Swedish and Danish systems work and how to read them without guessing.
• Convention hallmarks Convention Hallmarks: The Marks That Cross Borders The 1972 Vienna Convention created common control marks, the balance-scales punches, recognised by all member states. How CCM marks work, how to read them and what they date.
• British hallmarks British Import Marks: When Foreign Jewelry Passed Through the Hall Foreign-made gold and silver sold in Britain had to be assayed and struck with distinct import marks. How to recognise them, what the F mark and decimal fineness mean, and why they date pieces so well.
• Hallmarking systems Which Countries Actually Hallmark, and Which Only Pretend To Why a Swedish piece can be dated to the exact year, a British one to twelve months, an American one not at all, and what that means when you are trying to identify something.
• French hallmarks French Hallmarks: How to Read the Smallest Marks in Europe A complete guide to French gold and silver hallmarks, from the 1797 cockerel to the Minerva head, with the exact years each mark was in use and how to date a French piece without a date letter.
• Testing gold How to Tell If Gold Is Real: Seven Tests, Ranked Seven ways to check whether jewelry is solid gold, from the ones you can do at home in a minute to the ones that require a laboratory, with what each one actually proves.
• Hallmarks How to Read Hallmarks on Gold and Silver What each punch in a hallmark means, where to find the marks on a piece, how to read British, French, German, Scandinavian and Russian systems, and when a stamp guarantees nothing.
• Fineness What 375, 585, 750 and 925 Mean on Jewelry Every fineness figure you will meet on gold, silver and platinum, what each one converts to in carats, which countries use it and what it tells you about age and origin.

Every country solved the same problem differently, and only some of them thought to record the year. These pages give the system, the marks, what can be dated from them and where the traps are. 7 of the 22 systems below will give you a year.

• Dates a piece · from 1300 United Kingdom The oldest continuous hallmarking system in the world and the only one that routinely gives you the exact year. If your piece carries a full British hallmark, you can date it to twelve months.
• Dates a piece · from 1637 Ireland Dublin has assayed since 1637 and dates its work, so Irish pieces can be read as precisely as British ones.
• No date mark · from 1797 France The most rigorous Continental system and the smallest marks in Europe. French punches are frequently under a millimetre and are struck where they will not show, so a loupe is not optional. France never used a date letter, but it changed its guarantee marks at datable moments, and those changes bracket a piece more tightly than most people expect.
• No date mark · from 1888 Germany One law in 1888 replaced centuries of independent city marks with a single national mark. That gives you a hard floor: a crescent and crown cannot appear on anything made before 1888.
• Dates a piece · from 1608 Denmark Denmark dates its silver, and does so in plain digits rather than letters, which makes it the easiest Continental system to read. Three towers over the number 24 means 1924.
• Dates a piece · from 1689 Sweden Sweden dates its work with a letter and a numeral together, a combination no other country uses, so Swedish pieces announce themselves before you have decoded anything.
• No date mark · from nineteenth century Norway Norway does not date-mark, so Norwegian silver is dated by maker and by style. The makers are well documented, which makes this easier than it sounds.
• Dates a piece · from 1810 Finland Finland dates its work with a letter and number system similar to Sweden's, and uses the letter H for silver, which is the fastest way to recognise a Finnish piece.
• Dates a piece · from 1814 Netherlands The Dutch system dates its work and uses a lion for silver, with a numeral distinguishing the two standards. Dutch 833 silver is a national signature.
• No date mark · from seventeenth century Russia and the Soviet Union Russian marks are read in two eras with 1917 between them, and the imperial kokoshnik mark narrows a piece to a nine year window by which way the woman's head is facing.
• No date mark · from 1806 Austria and Hungary The Habsburg lands changed their marking system repeatedly, which means the exact variant matters more here than almost anywhere else.
• No date mark · from 1968 Italy Modern Italian marks identify the manufacturer by number and the province by two letters, which means an Italian piece can often be traced to a specific workshop.
• No date mark · from 1880 Switzerland Swiss marks are most often met on watch cases, where they date the case far more precisely than the movement inside it does.
• No date mark · from 1906 United States There is no assay office and never has been. American marks are claims made by the maker and enforced after the fact, not guarantees tested in advance.
• No date mark · from 1948 Mexico Mexican silver is dated by which registration system its mark belongs to, and the systems changed twice in the twentieth century.
• No date mark · from 1887 Portugal Portugal marks by assay office with animal and head figures, and uses gold standards that are unusually high by European standards.
• No date mark · from 1934 Spain Spanish marking was regional and inconsistent until the twentieth century, so most Spanish antique jewelry is identified by construction rather than by mark.
• Dates a piece · from 2000 India Indian hallmarking is recent and voluntary until it became compulsory for gold jewelry, which means almost all antique Indian work is unmarked.
• No date mark · from nineteenth century China and Hong Kong Chinese export silver of 1850 to 1940 carries marks designed to look British, which is the single most common misidentification in the whole field.
• No date mark · from 1928 Japan Japanese hallmarking is voluntary and modern, so Meiji and earlier work is identified by technique rather than by mark.
• No date mark · from eighteenth century Turkey and the Ottoman Empire Ottoman silver carries the sultan's monogram, which identifies the reign and therefore gives a date range without any letters or numbers being involved.
• No date mark · from 1972 International marks Some marks belong to no country. The Convention hallmark is recognised across member states, which is convenient for trade and unhelpful for attribution.