Swedish Hallmarks: How to Read Them

Q: Do swedish hallmarks tell you the year?

Yes. The date letter cycle begins with A in 1759 and runs through twenty-four letters, after which a numeral is added and the cycle restarts. A letter followed by a small digit is therefore Swedish and can be dated exactly against a cycle table. We do not reproduce the full table here because a wrong letter costs twenty-four years, and the tables are readily available from the Swedish assay authority.

Marking since: 1689
Gives a year: Yes

How the system works

Four marks together: the national three crowns, a town mark, a maker's mark and a date letter. Silver carries an S, gold a carat or fineness figure.

The marks

Mark	What it means
Three crowns	The Swedish national mark, struck in the three-lobed kattfot or cat's foot outline, in its current form from 1912. The same three crowns in an oval mean imported and assayed in Sweden rather than made there.

The standards

Figure or mark	Fineness and use
830S	The common Swedish silver standard.
925S	Sterling, mainly modern and export work.
18K	The usual Swedish gold standard.

Dating a swedish piece

The date letter cycle begins with A in 1759 and runs through twenty-four letters, after which a numeral is added and the cycle restarts. A letter followed by a small digit is therefore Swedish and can be dated exactly against a cycle table. We do not reproduce the full table here because a wrong letter costs twenty-four years, and the tables are readily available from the Swedish assay authority.

Where people go wrong

The three crowns in the three-lobed kattfot outline now used dates from 1912. Earlier Swedish work relies on the town mark and date letter. Three crowns in an oval are not the national mark at all: they mean the piece was imported into Sweden.
830 is the ordinary Swedish silver standard, not sterling.
Finnish marks follow a similar letter and number logic and are frequently confused with Swedish ones. Check for the Finnish crowned heart.

Other countries

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