Hallmarks

A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of precious metals such as platinum, gold, silver and more recently in some countries, palladium

Historically, hallmarks had to be applied by a trusted party and nowadays by an assay office. Hallmarks are a guarantee of certain purity or fineness of the metal as determined by formal metal assay testing.

Hallmarks are often confused with "trademarks" or "maker's mark". Hallmarks are an official mark of guaranteed metal content, trademarks are the mark of a manufacturer to distinguish his products from other manufacturers’ products

In nations with an official hallmarking scheme, the hallmark is only applied after the item has been assayed to determine that its purity conforms not only to the standards set down by the law but also and with the maker’s claims as to metallurgical content.

In some nations, such as the UK, the hallmark is made up of several elements including: a mark denoting the type of metal, the maker/sponsor's mark and the year of the marking.

From the Late Middle Ages, hallmarking was administered by local governments through authorized assayers. These assayers examined precious metal goods, under the auspices of the state, before the good could be offered for public sale.

Hallmarking is Europe's earliest form of consumer protection. Hallmarking in Europe appears first in France, with the Goldsmiths Statute of 1260

In 1300 King Edward I of England enacted a statute requiring that all silver articles must meet the sterling silver standard of 92.5% pure silver and must be assayed in this regard by 'guardians of the craft' who would then mark the item with a leopard's head.

In the UK the use of the term "hallmark" was first recorded in this sense in 1721 and in the more general sense as a mark of quality in 1864

In 1355, individual maker marks were introduced in France, which concept was later mirrored in England in 1363, adding accountability to the two systems. In 1427, the date letter system was established in France, allowing the accurate dating of any hallmarked piece. In 1478, the Assay Office was established in Goldsmiths' Hall and it was at this time, the date letter system was also introduced in England.

In 1697, a higher standard of silver, known as the Britannia standard or 95.8% silver) was made compulsory in Great Britain to protect the new coinage which was being melted down by silversmiths for the silver. The Sterling standard was restored in 1720.

In the modern world, in an attempt at standardizing the legislation on the inspection of precious metals and to facilitate international trade, in 1973 a core group of European nations signed the Vienna Convention on the control of the fineness and the hallmarking of precious metal objects.

Those articles, which are assayed and found to be in conformity by the qualifying office of a signatory country, receive a mark, known as the Common Control Mark (CCM), attesting to the material's fineness. The multi-tiered motif of the CCM is the balance scales, superimposed for silver a mark in the shape of the Latin letter "M".