How to read silver hallmarks

Have you bought a pretty piece of silver at an auction or yard sale? Or have you perhaps inherited silver and would love additional information on it? As an online auction seller I was thrown in on the deep side! The very first silver item I listed was a British silver photo frame. At the time I had no clue what silver was all about or even that it had any value. Fortunately I photographed the frame comprehensively, and a few bidders recognised the hallmarks. I was shocked by the price the frame achieved! I learn quickly and started keeping an eye out for silver hallmarks.

The first thing some people find confusing is the difference between "solid" silver and silver-plate, as both are hallmarked. Silver hallmarks, especially British silver hallmarks become quite easy to recognise as they always have a lion stamp, in some form. Silver-plate items will most often have "SP"; "EP"; or "EPNS" included in the hallmarks. Sometimes the letter "A" or "A1" is used which denotes the quality of the silver-plating. The picture below, from http://www.925-1000.com/platemarks.html is a good example of the difference between the hallmarks of silver and silver-plate.

Solid silver is not really solid at all, as an alloy of other metals (mostly copper) need to be added to the silver to strengthen it. The most common silver alloy has a 92,5% silver purity, hence the "925" stamped on the majority of silver jewelry pieces, otherwise known as sterling silver. I have bought a few pieces from other countries which have had different alloy ratios, for example I sold a large and really stunning tray from Portugual which was marked "800", which denoted an 80% silver purity.

This tray also received runaway bids and I learnt another lesson, the importance of the weight of the silver item. I use this fantastic resource. http://coinapps.com/silver/gram/calculator/ You weigh the item, enter the silver purity and there you have it, your silver value!

Of course if your silver has provenance ( a cool back story), age, rarity, artistic value or a combination of any of these attributes it will be worth a lot more than the silver price calculated above. How much more, is as with all antiques and collectibles, subjective. Desirability to multiple bidders determines the  price!

I most commonly find British Hallmarked silver, as South Africa used to be a British colony. I love looking up hallmarks as it is informative and methodical and they can tell you so much about the piece. The most silver common items you tend to find at auctions are serviette rings, teaspoons and photo frames. Be careful when you attend a general auction and the auctioneer declares the item to be silver. He or she often doesn't know the difference between silver and silver-plate and the onus is on you to check the item before buying it. I have seen some crazy bidding wars for silver-plate, and some very disappointed buyers! 

The first step is identifying your hallmarks. If there is a lion mark (which can take various forms) it is most likely British silver, which is automatically sterling silver. If there are any hallmarks you are unsure of (I had a case like this today) try to google one of the hallmarks. Let's start with British silver. There are set charts which you use to obtain information on your silver piece. The best site I have found and use regularly is: http://www.silvercollection.it/englishsilverhallmarks.html (all charts supplied in this article are courtesy of this site.)

First of all you will need to discover in which town the item was made. Each town has it's own assay mark. Select your town. I am going to use a serviette ring I listed today as an example.

                  

Immediately you see the lion. This tells you this is a piece of British silver. The mark to the left is the town symbol. From the chart above you can determine the town is Birmingham. The mark on the right is the date stamp, and there are charts for that too!

                                                  

The date the serviette holder was made is 1936. The mark in the lozenge in the far left is the maker's mark and you guessed it, there are charts to assist you with that too! The maker's mark will help you to confirm you have the correct date letter, especially when the marks are not clear due to factors such as age or wear. If you would like further information on your piece, you can also google the maker. Obviously some maker's are more sought after than others, which can add to the value of your piece.

 

Every now and again I find a silver item I have no clue about, like this silver sugar tongs.

I started with with the mark that was the easiest to describe, and googled "crown on top of a harp silver hallmark". When googling antiques or collectibles, image search usually works best. Almost immediately I discovered the sugar tongs was made in Dublin. Yippee, off to those trusty charts again!

To my delight I discovered the sugar tongs were made in 1823!!! The serviette ring weighed 28g and I listed it for R120 ($9), just under silver weight price as serviette rings are not very popular and usually are bought purely for silver investment purposes. The sugar tongs weighed 46g and I listed it for R380 ($29), quite a bit over silver weight price as they are almost 200 years old and Irish silver is sought after.

I hope this article has in some way proved useful, and if you require further help, submit a photo of the hallmarks you wish deciphered and I will be happy to help if I can.

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