Silver hallmarks: telling sterling from Britannia, continental silver and plate

01

The first question: is there an assay office mark at all?

Before reading anything else on a spoon or a teapot, look for one of the four office marks: a leopard's head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a rose for Sheffield or a castle for Edinburgh. Older pieces may show the mark of an office that has since closed, such as Chester, Exeter, Newcastle, York or Glasgow, and older Sheffield silver shows a crown. If there is a genuine office mark, the piece was sent to an assay office and tested. If there is none, and no Convention scales or recognised foreign assay mark either, nobody tested the piece, however official the other marks look.

That one check sorts most household silver quickly, because plated ware is common and often well disguised. Victorian and Edwardian platers often struck their own row of little shields with letters, animals or a crown in them, laid out like a hallmark. Most were a maker's house style rather than a forgery, but at a glance they pass for hallmarks, and they still fool people.

Marks on silver-coloured ware: which mean silver and which mean plate

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EPNS stands for electroplated nickel silver (the glossary lists the other plating marks), and the nickel silver underneath contains no silver at all; it is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc named for its colour. A1 is a plater's quality grade, not a fineness. The guide to EPNS, A1 and Sheffield plate explains why none of them has silver worth recovering, and the few cases where old Sheffield plate is worth something to a collector instead.

02

Sterling: the lion passant, 925, and the marks around them

Sterling silver is at least 925 parts silver in 1,000, and in England it has been shown by the lion passant since 1544, according to the Goldsmiths' Company Assay Office. The lion walks across the field with one forepaw raised. For most of its history it was the standard mark itself; since 1999 the compulsory standard mark has been the figure 925 in an oval, and the lion has continued as an optional traditional mark that many makers still ask for.

On a piece of English sterling from the eighteenth or nineteenth century you would typically expect four or five marks in a row: the maker's initials, the lion passant, the office mark, a date letter, and between 1784 and 1890 a small profile of the sovereign's head. That last one is the duty mark, struck to show that tax had been paid on the plate, and it disappeared when the duty was abolished in 1890. On its own it dates a piece to between 1784 and 1890, which is one of the quickest age checks there is. Our guide to hallmark date letters explains how to read the letter beside it.

Scotland did things differently. The Silver Society notes that older Edinburgh silver carries a thistle as its standard mark and Glasgow silver a lion rampant, the lion standing on its hind legs. The Assay Offices' guidance shows the lion rampant as today's Scottish sterling symbol, so a lion rampant beside a castle is Scottish sterling rather than a variant of the English lion. Irish silver assayed in Dublin has its own marks again: the Silver Society gives a crowned harp as the Dublin standard mark and a seated Hibernia as the town mark.

03

Britannia, continental and fine silver

Britannia silver is the higher standard, at least 958.4 parts in 1,000, and its fineness mark reads 958. It was made compulsory in 1697, to stop silversmiths melting the coinage for their raw material, and the Goldsmiths' Company records that the old sterling standard was restored in 1720 with Britannia kept as an alternative. Britannia-standard pieces of that period carry a seated figure of Britannia, and a lion's head with a ragged neck (heraldically "erased") in place of the leopard's head. A piece marked this way is uncommon and often early, which is a reason to ask a specialist before anyone treats it as metal.

Continental silver is usually a lower standard. Much European silver was made at 800 fine, and some at 830 or 835, so a continental spoon has less silver in it than an English one of the same weight. The UK approves 800 as a standard; it does not approve 830 or 835, so a UK office would mark such a piece 800. If the only mark is a foreign number, it is the maker's claim, and it is checked by testing like any other.

Fine silver, 999, turns up mostly as bars and some modern coins and is rare in household silver. The four UK silver standards, as the assay offices publish them, are 800, 925, 958 (strictly 958.4) and 999, and anything under 7.78 g is exempt from hallmarking, which is why small silver charms, thimbles and earrings are so often unmarked.

04

Where to find the marks on cutlery, hollowware and small silver

1. Spoons and forksOn the back of the stem, usually near the top where the stem widens. Older pieces may have the marks close to the bowl.
2. KnivesOn the handle, usually near the collar where it meets the blade. A steel blade carries only a cutler's name; a silver blade, found on some fruit and dessert knives, is marked on the blade itself. A silver handle is usually a hollow shell loaded with filler, so it holds less silver than it looks; see the weighted silver guide.
3. Teapots, jugs and bowlsUnderneath, or in a line near the rim or the base. A detachable lid may carry some of the marks on its own. A lid with none, on a marked pot, may be a later replacement.
4. Candlesticks and basesOn the rim of the base or the top of the stem. Most later ones are loaded with pitch or plaster inside a thin silver skin. Earlier cast candlesticks are solid, much heavier, and can be worth far more as antiques, so show them to a specialist first.
5. Frames, brushes and dressing-table setsOn the silver front or border. The backing is wood, card or velvet, and the silver is often very thin.

Tarnish does not hide a mark as much as it seems to; it tends to settle in the recesses and can make the edges easier to see. There is no need to polish anything before photographing it, and polishing an old piece can take off surface and value together. The guide to cleaning before you sell explains why leaving it alone is usually right.

05

Seller risks and exceptions with silver marks

• A hallmark tells you the fineness of the silver, not how much silver there is. Candlesticks, knife handles and some photo frames are mostly filler, backing or steel.
• Pseudo-hallmarks on plate are easily mistaken for the real thing. The absence of an assay office mark is what gives them away, not the shape of the other marks.
• A single sterling mark on a large piece of plate is sometimes a marked sterling mount on a plated body, or a marked fragment let into an unmarked piece. The body of the item is what gets tested.
• Worn marks on old spoons can be partly or wholly rubbed away. A worn mark may still be there even if you cannot read it. The checks on arrival decide what can be established, and the offer says what could not.
• American silver is usually stamped STERLING by the maker and carries no assay office mark, because the United States has no hallmarking system of the British kind. That is normal.
• Silver-gilt looks like gold. A gold-coloured cup or spoon hallmarked with a lion or 925 is gilded silver, and it is bought as silver.

06

When not to use the scrap route for hallmarked silver

Full sets of old marks are what a silver collector reads first. A Britannia-standard piece, anything with a duty mark, a closed office's mark, a recognised maker's initials, or a complete canteen in its original case can each be worth more intact than as metal, sometimes much more. The guide to antique silverware sets out which pieces should go to a specialist dealer or an auction house before they go anywhere near a refinery.