Read my hallmark
Enter everything you can see, in any order. Marks are read together, not one at a time: a figure gives the metal, a symbol gives the place, and a letter gives the year - but only once the other two have ruled out the wrong cycles.
In any order, separated by spaces. You do not need to know what any of it means - that is the job of this page. Figures, single letters, initials and the names of shapes all work: 925, 830S, a, T9, CFH, anchor, three towers, lion, kings head.
Nothing struck on it at all, or too worn to make out? Then there is nothing to read, and date your piece works from the construction instead.
Where the marks actually are
Most people conclude a piece is unmarked after looking at the front. Marks are struck where they will not show and where the metal is thick enough to take a punch without distorting.
- Rings. Inside the shank, usually at the bottom opposite the setting. If the ring has been sized, the marks are often the casualty.
- Brooches. On the pin stem, on the catch, or on the flat of the frame near the hinge.
- Earrings. On the post, the clip plate or the very edge of the back.
- Chains and bracelets. On the clasp, on the jump ring beside it, or on a small separate tag. A marked clasp does not mark the chain: clasps are replaced constantly.
- Pendants and lockets. On the bail, the rim, or inside the back cover.
Use a 10x loupe and raking light, not overhead light. Worn marks come back into legibility when the light comes from the side. Read more in the full guide to reading marks.
Whose registers this reads
Maker's marks are the part nobody can look up, because a mark can only be traced where a state kept a register. Where an official register exists and is public, this tool reads it.
- Denmark. The complete Navnestempelregister from Ædelmetalkontrollen: 7,803 registered stamps from 1892 to today, with the year each was registered and the year it lapsed.
- Sweden. The complete Namnstämpelregister from Swedac: 10,024 registered marks, the earliest from 1836, with the town and the years of registration.
That is close to eighteen thousand marks from two national registers, searched together. If the same letters were registered in both countries, you get both, and the years tell you which one you are holding.
We leave out the street addresses, postcodes and websites that the Swedish register carries. They identify living people and are no help at all in dating an object.
Those years are worth as much as the mark itself. A Danish piece struck G.J. was registered to Georg Jensen in 1904 and the registration lapsed in 1937, so the mark and the three towers date should agree. Where they do not, one of them was added later.
What it can and cannot tell you
Four countries, four different answers, and the difference is not our data but their law.
| Country | Best it can do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Denmark | The exact year | The year is struck as two digits under the three towers. Nothing needs decoding at all |
| Sweden | The exact year | Letter plus numeral is a calculation from A in 1759 |
| Britain, London | The exact year, usually | Twenty-letter cycles anchored on a known year, then narrowed by the other marks |
| Britain, from 1975 | The exact year | All four offices share one cycle after the Hallmarking Act 1973 |
| Britain, other offices before 1975 | The office, and a window | Their cycle boundaries are not verified in our data yet, and we will not invent them |
| Spain | Standard, sometimes a region | Marking was regional and unsystematic until the twentieth century. There is no year to find |
What narrows a British date letter
A letter on its own repeats every twenty or twenty-five years. These marks each cut the possibilities down, and two or three together usually leave one.
- The monarch's head means 1784 to 1890. It is the sharpest single constraint in British hallmarking.
- 15ct or 12ct means 1854 to 1932, because those standards existed only in that window.
- 14ct or 585 means 1932 or later in Britain.
- Platinum means 1975 or later as a hallmark, and 1900 or later as a metal.
- Palladium means 2010 or later.
- A closed office is a hard ceiling: Exeter 1883, Newcastle 1884, Chester 1962, Glasgow 1964.
The step a text box cannot do
British cycles are told apart by the typeface of the letter and the shape of the shield around it. A lower case Gothic g in a shield is a different year from a Roman capital G in a rectangle, and no amount of typing captures that. When this tool gives you two or three candidate years, that is the honest answer, and the way to close it is to compare the punch itself against the cycle table for that office.
The systems themselves are set out country by country under hallmarks, and single marks can be looked up in the decoder.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find the year on a British hallmark?
Read the date letter together with the assay office mark. Each office ran its own cycle, so the same letter means different years in London and Birmingham. Once you know the office, the other marks - the duty mark, the standard, the fineness figure - rule out all but one or two cycles.
How do I read a Danish hallmark?
Look for three towers in a row with two digits beneath them. Those digits are the year of assay: three towers over 24 means 1924. The assay master's initials beside them narrow it further if the digits are worn.
How do I read a Swedish date letter?
Swedish letters run in 24-year cycles from A in 1759, omitting J, W and the vowels with diacritics. From 1783 a numeral was added for each new cycle, so A2 is 1783 and A3 is 1807. Letter and numeral together give the year exactly.
Why does my hallmark give more than one possible year?
Because the letter repeats each cycle. Distinguishing cycles needs the typeface and the shape of the surround, which cannot be entered as text. Adding another mark, particularly the duty mark or the fineness, usually narrows it to one.
Can Spanish silver be dated from its marks?
Rarely. Spain had no national date letter system before the twentieth century and marking was issued by individual cities and guilds. Spanish work is dated from its construction instead.