hallmarks

Heres an update on my mini seriese on hallmarking which covers how to read the hallmarks that you can find on silver, gold and platinum jewellery. These are important to all collectors of antique and vintage jewellery as they help us to identify, date and value a piece.

- What are the different hallmark symbols?

- British hallmarks from the Victorian era through to the 1970s

- Current British hallmarks

- European hallmarks

- Useful books and websites

OK – Part one of my mini series on reading gold and silver hallmarks. Before we learn how to read them I though it would be useful to look at what useful information they tell us.

As far as I am concerned it is wonderful to find a piece of antique or vintage jewellery with a full set of British hallmarks. From a full set of British hallmarks on vintage and antique jewellery you can tell:

- what metal the jewellery is made of ( gold, silver or platinum)

- what the quality of that metal is ( 9 carat or 22 carat gold?)

- the date the piece was hallmarked ( 1870 or 1970?)

- the town it was hallmarked in

- the sponsors mark of the company who had the piece hallmarked ( often the maker or artist but could be a retailer)

So from these tiny marks we can gain really accurate and guaranteed information. No wonder antique British jewellery is so popular to collect.More recently (since 1999) the British hallmarking system has changed and we can often get less information but that will affect vintage collectors of the future rather than those of today. At least we can tell that the piece is after 1999. Each European country has a different set of marks some useful, others very difficult. I will cover other European countries later on.

Before we go any further arm yourself with a loup ( a jewellers 10x magnifying glass) and carefully clean out the dirt from the hallmarks on the metal. They are often so clogged up you cant read them. Unless you are certain that all the gems set into your jewellery are safe to clean do take care and seek specialist advice before carrying out this step. I also find that pen and paper is handy – copy out the hallmarks the letters and shapes. This means that you can use the hallmark tables without needing to keep examining the piece.

You are going to find a huge variety of marks and also many of your pieces of jewellery will not have any hallmarks – I will cover how to identify jewellery without hallmarks at a later date

Since my previous post on vintage jewellery hallmarks I have received a couple of queries about loupes – where to get one, which one to choose and how to use one.

There are good loupes and bad ones, as with most things in life you pay a little more for quality. If you are going to be examining lots of hallmarks its best to go for a slightly better one. Above are two loupes both have the same 10 x magnification – the tatty black one is the one I use every day, the shiny silver one I would only use in an emergency – it hurts my eyes to spend much time using that. The larger loupe has a lens about 20mm diameter. The smaller one is about 14mm.

The black loupe is not only slightly larger but it has a better quality lens ( I dont understand the technical stuff here but its know as a Triplet lens) which allows me to read the hallmarks more clearly. I seem to remember paying about £5 for the silver one and about £25 for the black one. You can get better quality (and more expensive ) loupes than this but for the purpose of reading hallmarks this would be quite sufficient.

To use a loupe you hold it in your hand a bit like a fat pencil between the thumb and index finger and then use the middle finger to steady it. Your piece of hallmarked jewellery goes into the opposite hand. The loupe is used very close up to your eye – almost touching your eye lashes or reading glasses. The hallmarked piece of vintage jewellerygoes quite close to the loupe, just move it about until you can focus clearly. Can you see the hallmarks clearly now? Using a loupe does take a bit of practice but its worth putting in the effort.

Where to buy a loupe?

Its best if you can get the chance to try a few out – there are often stalls selling loupes at the larger antique fairs . Here you can try out a few different ones until you find something that suits. You could but a cheap one on eBay but personally I have used this website

What are the different hallmark symbols you find on vintage jewellery. Well there can be all sorts of different marks . This is part three of my guide to hallmarking on British vintage and antique jewellery and it covers the standard symbols.

Here is a full set of silver hallmarks on a piece of vintage jewellery. Think these are difficult to read? To me these are about the average standard of readability you can expect on an older piece as hallmarks do tend to wear away at the edges. There are several things to note here reading from left to right:

• - the initials ( this is the sponsor or markers mark)
• - the anchor ( This is the Town mark for Birmingham)
• - the lion passant ( The standard mark for English Sterling Silver)
• - the letter Z and the font this is written in ( This is the date letter)
• - the shape of the area the symbols are set into ( this helps with the dating)