Silver hallmarks, explained

When the coins went missing

By the 1690s England was prospering, and prosperous households wanted silver plate. The quickest source was the coin in their pockets. So much silver coin was being melted down and turned into plate that, in 1697, Parliament took an unusual step to protect the currency: it made the silver for plate purer than the coins themselves.

The new standard was 95.84% silver, and it came with a new mark, a seated figure of Britannia. A silversmith could no longer melt a handful of coins and sell the result, because sterling coin was no longer good enough. More than three centuries later, Britannia is still one of the four silver standards in British law, and her figure can still be struck beside the number. That number, and the shape around it, is where reading any silver hallmark begins.

The four silver standards

Pure silver is too soft for most jewellery, so it is alloyed with other metals to make it harder. A UK hallmark says how much of the metal is pure silver, in parts per thousand. Since 1999 the law has recognised four silver standards.

As with gold, the number is a minimum, not an average. A piece marked 925 has been tested and found to contain at least 925 parts of silver in every thousand. The words carry the same weight as the numbers: under the Hallmarking Act, calling something "sterling" means 925 silver, and calling it "Britannia" means 958.4. The one exception the Act spells out is "Britannia metal", which the law does not treat as a claim to be silver.

Reading the marks

A British silver hallmark has three compulsory marks, usually read from left to right. The story of the hallmark tells where each one came from. Here is what they look like on silver.

• The sponsor's mark. At least two letters inside a surround, registered to the person or company that sent the piece to be tested.
• The fineness mark. The number, 800, 925, 958 or 999, inside an oval. The shape is the quick way to tell the metal: gold, platinum and palladium each have a different outline, and silver's is the oval.
• The assay office mark. Which of the four UK offices tested it: a leopard's head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a rose for Sheffield or a castle for Edinburgh.

After those may come a traditional symbol, a date letter, or both. Neither is compulsory. And if a piece combines silver with a visible base metal, such as steel, the hallmark is struck on the silver with the extra words "+METAL" beside it.

The lion, the Scottish lion and Britannia

The traditional symbols repeat the fineness in picture form. They are optional, and they can't replace the number: an assay office strikes them alongside it, never instead of it. UK law allows these.

The lion passant first appeared on London silver in 1544, and it has long been the sign of sterling. The lion rampant is the Scottish sterling symbol, and the law simply swaps it in for the walking lion on anything the Edinburgh office marks.

Whether you see a symbol at all depends partly on the office. London's assay office says it strikes the traditional mark as a matter of course, because most of its customers still want to see it. Other offices may leave it off unless asked, so a sterling piece with no lion is no less sterling.

Britannia silver

The 1697 law did more than raise the standard. It changed the marks too: a lion's head erased and the seated Britannia replaced the leopard's head and the lion passant, and makers' marks changed from initials to the first two letters of the maker's surname. For more than twenty years, new plate had to be made to the higher standard.

It didn't last as the only choice. In 1720 the old sterling standard was restored, but Britannia was kept as an alternative, and it has been one ever since. Today a piece of 958 silver can carry the figure of Britannia beside its number, just as its 1697 ancestors did.

Small pieces and the 925 stamp

In the UK, a business may only describe something as silver if it is hallmarked, unless it is exempt. The most common exemption is weight. A silver piece weighing less than 7.78 grams needs no hallmark, and many fine chains, studs and small charms come in under that.

Many of those small pieces carry a plain "925" instead. It is worth knowing what that stamp is. The UK assay offices treat a maker's fineness mark as a description of the metal, just as a label or a sales description would be. On a piece under 7.78 grams, that description is allowed without a hallmark. On a piece of 7.78 grams or more, a "925" stamp on its own is not enough: the piece needs the full hallmark.

A "925" stamp is not a hallmark. It is the maker's own claim, not an independent test. The London Assay Office has said makers don't need to punch 925 on underweight sterling at all. Why small pieces don't need a hallmark explains the weights, and how they are counted, in more detail.

Gold plated silver and vermeil

A great deal of gold coloured jewellery is silver underneath, and the hallmark follows the metal, not the colour. The UK assay offices' guidance is clear on how it works.

• Gold plated silver is hallmarked as silver. The hallmark is the silver hallmark, or on an underweight piece a 925 stamp. No separate gold fineness mark is allowed, because it could mislead.
• The description must say silver, and "gold" must be followed by "plated". "18ct gold plated silver ring" is fine, and so is "925 & 18ct gold plated".
• Vermeil can be added, not substituted. "18ct gold plated vermeil silver ring" is allowed. "22ct gold vermeil ring" is not, and nor is "22ct gold clad ring".
• "Silver gilt" is allowed for gold plated silver, as long as no gold fineness is given with it.
• The gold layer must be at least 375 fine, and the guidance says it should not exceed 2 microns.

Silver can also be plated with rhodium, platinum, palladium, ruthenium or more silver and still be hallmarked. What it can't have is a layer of base metal, such as nickel or copper, either on the surface or hidden between the silver and the gold. An assay office that finds one will reject the piece.

Elsewhere the word means something slightly different. In the United States, federal guidance says vermeil must be sterling silver coated with gold of at least 10 karat, at least 2.5 microns thick. A piece made to that definition and sold in the UK would still be described here as gold plated silver.

Silver marked abroad

Not every hallmark you meet will be British, and not every foreign mark counts in the UK.

• Convention marks. The UK belongs to the International Convention on Hallmarking. Silver struck with the Convention's Common Control Mark, a pair of scales, in a member country is accepted here without being tested again. The Convention recognises the same four silver standards: 800, 925, 958 and 999. The mark still comes with a sponsor's mark and the testing office's own mark.
• Older European marks. Hallmarks struck by independent offices in EU and EEA countries before Brexit, and marks struck in Dublin before 1 April 1923, also count as approved hallmarks in UK law.
• American silver. In the United States, "sterling" must mean at least 925 silver, and "coin silver" at least 900. Those words and stamps are not UK hallmarks.
• A plain 925, S925 or similar. These are makers' stamps, wherever the piece was made. They are not hallmarks.

One more subtlety: a UK hallmark is not a certificate of origin. The British Hallmarking Council's notice says so plainly. UK offices can mark pieces at approved sites outside the UK, and those pieces carry a distinct version of the office's mark, so the two can be told apart.

Britannia, still seated

The coins of 1697 are long gone, melted or spent or sitting in museum drawers. The rule they prompted is still here. Turn over a piece of Britannia silver today and the same seated figure may look back at you, beside a number in an oval, promising exactly what she promised then: this metal is finer than the money in your pocket.