For collectors of antique silver, it pays to know how to identify your items and in our latest guide, we will take the mystery out of antique silver hallmarks to help you!
Of interest to collectors of jewellery and decorative pieces, antique silver offers not only great aesthetics but also investment potential. As a collector, it is useful to be able to identify and date your antique silver accurately but, in order to do that, it’s important to understand the hallmarks involved, as these are the most important factors for identification.
What are hallmarks?
Hallmarks are those tiny stamped symbols and letters that are found on items made from precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum.
What are hallmarks for?
Silver in its purest form is too malleable to be worked and crafted into items, and requires the addition of other metals to make it strong enough to be shaped by silversmiths and jewellers. The metal added to the silver (often copper) will obviously restrict the value of the silver and hallmarks were introduced to give buyers the peace of mind that their item met the sterling silver standard of 92.5% pure silver.
What do hallmarks mean?
Silver hallmarks are made up of 4 or 5 individual symbols stamped on the metal, each representing a different aspect of the piece as follows:
The Standard Mark
The standard mark tells you where your silver item was made and confirms its purity. British and Irish silver will have one of 5 marks -
English sterling silver features a walking lion, known as a lion passant
Scottish sterling silver from Glasgow has a standing lion, known as a lion rampant
Scottish sterling silver from Edinburgh bears a thistle
Irish sterling silver from Dublin will have a crowned harp
An image of Britannia marks Britannia silver, in force from 1696-1720 when the standard was raised to 958.4 parts of pure silver per thousand.
The absence of a standard mark could suggest foreign silver or silver plate.
Following the standard mark, silver will also bear a town mark. This relates to the particular assay office that tested and verified the silver’s purity. Assay offices apply a stamp to the silver once it has met their requirements.
The Town Mark
An exhaustive list of town marks can be found in Bradbury’s Book of Hallmarks, a valuable resource for anyone interested in English, Irish and Scottish silver, but the main marks for collectors are as follows:
London (1696-1719) – a lion head erased. This refers to a lion’s head with a jagged neckline
London (pre 1820) – a leopard’s head crowned
London (post 1820) – a leopard’s head (uncrowned)
Sheffield – a crown (1773-1975). Since 1975, the town mark for Sheffield has been a Tudor rose
Chester – three wheat sheaves and a sword
Birmingham – an anchor
Glasgow – a tree, fish, and bell
Edinburgh – the castle
Dublin – a crowned harp
York (1710-1856) – five lions passant on a cross
Newcastle Upon Tyne (1658-1883) – three castles
Exeter (1701-1856) – a castle with three towers
Once the town mark has been identified, the date letter comes next.
The Date Letter
The date letter does not indicate the year of manufacture, but the year the piece was assayed or hallmarked. As each assay office has its own date chart, you must identify the town mark first. It is important to establish the font, capitalisation and the shield shape (background) in each mark as these change in cycles. It’s important to note, too, that each office uses a different sequence of letters, starting from a different year. As an example, the date letter for 1911 in London is a lowercase ‘q’, in Sheffield it is a lowercase ‘t’ and in Edinburgh it is an uppercase ‘F’. The shield and font is also different in each case.
Below is the date letter chart for the London Assay Office 1696-1935:
The Duty Mark
The duty mark was only applied in certain years, from 1784-1890 in England, and is in the form of the reigning monarch’s head. It shows that required duties have been paid.
1784-85 the king’s head faced left and was indented or debossed
1786-1837 the king’s head faced right and was raised (embossed)
1837-1890 Queen Victoria’s head always faced left
Where a piece features two heads, it can be dated precisely to the nine months from July 1797, when duty was doubled.
The Maker’s Mark
As each silversmith had their own unique mark with which to identify their work, you can imagine how many maker’s marks there are! Early maker’s marks comprised a picture but this was later replaced by the first two letters of their surname and then just the silversmith’s initials.
Antique silver from Hemswell Antique Centres
At Hemswell Antique Centres, we have an extensive selection of silver antiques to browse online, plus silver antique jewellery, and many of our dealers are accredited by LAPADA (The Association of Art and Antique Dealers). We understand that identifying silver hallmarks is a big task, particularly for the beginner, but our dealers are always happy to help and share their expertise when on site. So why not come and spend the day with us and experience our entire collection of antique silver for yourself?
