Silversmiths directory
One search across some 45,000 makers from eight countries: every register this site holds, in a single box. Type a name, the initials on the punch, a town, or the little device in a French lozenge, and see who it was and when they worked.
Type at least two letters to search. The registers load on your first keystroke and stay on the device afterwards, so this also works offline at a fair.
What this searches
Eight registers, kept in their original fields and searched together. Four are official state registers, read in full: Denmark's Navnestempelregister from Ædelmetalkontrollen (7,803 stamps from 1892), Sweden's from Swedac (10,024 marks back to 1836), Finland's from Tukes (5,857 marks from 1904), and 15,664 British and Irish sponsors' marks across all ten assay offices from Silver Makers' Marks, used with the owner's permission.
The other four come from Silver Collection, Giorgio B.'s thousand-page encyclopedia of silver marks, also used with the owner's permission: some 4,600 French makers' marks with the device struck inside the lozenge, and directories of German, American and Canadian silversmiths and factories with their working dates.
How to read what you find
The French entries are the most precise: since 1797 every French maker's punch has been a lozenge holding the maker's initials and a small device - an anchor, a bee, a boot. Type the initials, then narrow by the device: AB a star is a different firm from AB a hammer, and the register knows both. The years given are the span the mark was registered, which dates the piece directly.
American and German entries work the other way round: there is no assay system behind them, so the mark is usually the firm's name or trademark, and the years are working dates gathered from trade directories. They bracket the piece rather than date it.
A date letter plus a maker is stronger than either alone: the letter gives candidate years, the maker's working span strikes most of them out. That crossing is done automatically in read my hallmark, which searches these same registers.
Frequently asked questions
Why can I not find my maker?
Registration was never universal. The state registers only know makers who sold in that country’s market, the directories only know firms that advertised, and small workshops slipped through everywhere. An absent name does not mean a fake - it means this particular trail is cold, and the piece must be dated from its marks and construction instead.
What do the years after a name mean?
For the state registers, the years a mark was registered - a hard span the piece must fall inside. For the American, German and Canadian directories, working dates gathered from trade sources - a bracket, not a registration.
Does this work offline?
Yes. After the first search the registers stay cached on the device, so the directory keeps answering with no signal - in a basement auction room, for instance.