Which Countries Actually Hallmark, and Which Only Pretend To

Almost every country's silversmiths marked their work. That is not the difference. The difference is whether a state made them register the mark and then kept the paperwork, because a mark you cannot look up is just a shape.

Sweden does it better than anyone

If you only learn one country's system, learn Sweden's, because it is the one that rewards you most.

Sweden has run an unbroken national date letter series since 1759. Not one office's series, not a series interrupted by wars and reorganisations: one sequence, for the whole country, still running. Twenty-four letters, omitting J, W and the three vowels with diacritics. When the alphabet ran out in 1782 they added a numeral and started again. A2 is 1783. A3 is 1807. The letter and the numeral together give you the year, and you can do it with arithmetic rather than a lookup table.

A properly marked Swedish piece carries four marks together: the three crowns for the country, a town mark, the maker's registered mark, and the date letter. That is everything you could reasonably ask an object to tell you about itself, struck into the metal in four small punches.

The practical result is that a plain Swedish wedding band, worth very little, can be dated to a single year in about four seconds. Very few countries can do that at all, and none do it as consistently over as long a period.

The full-system countries

Denmark deserves a note beside Sweden. The Copenhagen three towers carry the year as two plain digits underneath: three towers over 24 means 1924. No cycle, no table, no typeface to match. It is the single most readable date mark in Europe, and it ran from 1608 to 1977.

The countries that mark the metal but not the year

France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain and Austria-Hungary all guarantee the metal, and most identify the maker, but none of them tell you when.

That is less useless than it sounds, because the marks themselves changed at datable moments. A French boar's head cannot be later than 1961; a crayfish cannot be earlier than 1962. A German crescent and crown cannot predate the 1888 law. An Italian star and province number cannot predate 1968. You get a window rather than a year, and the windows are often narrow enough to settle an argument.

The countries with no system at all

The United States has never had an assay office. Neither has Canada, and Australia's arrangements were always partial. A mark on American silver is a trademark, protected by trademark law and enforced after the fact, not a punch struck by an official who tested the metal first.

This has two consequences worth knowing.

First, STERLING or 925 on an American piece is a claim by the manufacturer, not a guarantee by anyone else. It is usually honest, because the National Gold and Silver Stamping Act of 1906 made lying about it an offence, but nobody tested it before it was sold.

Second, and more painfully for anyone trying to identify a piece, an American maker's mark often cannot be traced at all. There is no register to consult, because there was no requirement to register. Some firms are documented by collectors and historians, and those you can find. The rest are simply gone.

The second question nobody asks: is the register published?

Everything above is about what a country marks. There is a second axis, and in practice it matters more, because it decides whether you can put a name to the initials.

Almost every European country made makers register their punch. Very few made those registers public. This is not the same distinction as the one above, and it does not line up with it: a country can date your piece to the year and still refuse to tell you who made it.

We went and checked each one, because nobody seems to have written it down.

Three things fall out of that table.

The Scandinavians are extraordinary and nobody says so. Denmark, Sweden and Finland simply put their national registers online, complete, for anyone. That is why a Scandinavian mark can usually be named in seconds, and it has nothing to do with their hallmarking systems being older or better. They just published.

France is the hard case, and it is hard permanently. There is no central register of the poinçon de maître and there never was one in a form that could be published. The records are archives, in the Archives Nationales and departmental collections. So a French lozenge can be identified as French and dated to a period, and usually not named. Anyone selling you a complete French makers' index is selling you a book compiled from photographs of objects, which is a useful thing but is not the register.

"Not in a database" is not the same as "lost". The Dutch register runs back to 1797 and holds around 22,000 marks. It exists, it is complete, and it is a printed book. The Norwegian marks are all there too, sitting inside the trademark register, searchable one at a time. The information survives. It just was never turned into something a computer can read, and that is a different problem from the American one, where there is genuinely nothing to find.

What this means when you have a piece in your hand

Work out which tier you are in before you start hunting, because it tells you what a good outcome looks like.

• Sweden, Denmark, Finland: expect a year and a name. Both registers are open. If you are not getting one, you are missing a mark, so look again.
• Britain and Ireland: expect a year, and expect the maker too, though that part rests on private compilations rather than on anything the state published.
• France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Switzerland: expect a metal, an origin and a window. A year is not on offer, and a name usually is not either.
• Netherlands: expect a year, because the Dutch do use a date letter, but expect to work for it. The date tables are less accessible than the British ones, and the makers' register exists only in print.
• United States, Canada, Australia: expect a metal claim and, with luck, a documented maker. Do not expect a date from the marks. Date it from its construction instead, which is what how to date antique jewelry is for.

And in every case, the marks are read together rather than one at a time. Put everything you can see into the hallmark reader and it will tell you which of these three situations you are actually in.

Frequently asked questions

Which country has the best hallmarking system?

Sweden, for identification purposes. It has run one unbroken national date letter series since 1759, so a Swedish piece can usually be dated to a single year by arithmetic. Britain's system is older, running since 1300, but its date letters ran separately in each assay office and need the right table and typeface to read.

Why does American silver have no date mark?

Because the United States never established assay offices. American marks are trademarks rather than official hallmarks, so they identify the maker but carry no assay date. Age has to be judged from construction, patents and the style of the mark itself.

Can every maker's mark be looked up?

No, and there are two separate reasons why not. Either the country never required makers to register, which is the American, Canadian and Australian case, or it did require it but never published the register. Most of Europe is the second kind. The register exists; you simply cannot search it.

Which countries publish their register of makers' marks?

Denmark, Sweden and Finland publish theirs in full and free: Ædelmetalkontrollen, Swedac and Tukes respectively. That is the whole list. Britain and Ireland can be searched through private compilations built by collectors rather than through anything the assay offices released. Norway keeps its marks inside the trademark register at Patentstyret, searchable one at a time. The Netherlands has about 22,000 marks back to 1797, in a printed book with no digital edition.

Why can't I look up a French maker's mark?

Because there is no French register to look it up in. France required the maker's punch, the poinçon de maître, and has done since 1797, but the records are archive material held chiefly in the Archives Nationales and departmental collections. They were never compiled into a published list. A French lozenge can normally be identified as French and dated to a period from the guarantee marks beside it, but not named.

Is there an online database of Dutch makers' marks?

No. WaarborgHolland's register of responsibility marks runs from 1797 and holds roughly 22,000 marks, but it exists only as a printed book. There is no PDF, no e-book and no searchable online version.

What does the three towers mark mean on Danish silver?

It is the Copenhagen assay mark, and the two digits beneath it are the year of assay: three towers over 24 means 1924. It was used from 1608 to 1977. It is not on every Danish piece, because the large workshops held an agreement that their silver need not carry it.

How do I read a Swedish date letter?

Take the letter's position in the alphabet used, which omits J, W and the vowels with diacritics, and add it to 1759 plus 24 years for each cycle the numeral indicates. A is 1759, A2 is 1783, A3 is 1807. The hallmark reader does the arithmetic for you.