A three-towered castle, representing Edinburgh Castle. In use since at least 1457.
Edinburgh's Assay Office is the older of the two historically active Scottish offices (the other, Glasgow, closed in 1964). The three-towered castle town mark predates London's continuous date-letter system; record-keeping is patchy before 1681 but the mark itself is documented from 1457. The Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh remains the governing body.
Scottish silver does not use the Lion Passant. Historically Edinburgh's standard mark was the Thistle (1759–1974), then the Lion Rampant from 1975 onwards, alongside the three-towered castle town mark. Pre-1759 pieces use a deacon's mark — this is a cycle-specific mark that varies by year and requires expert reference for accurate dating. From 1975 the Lion Rampant signals sterling silver assayed in Scotland.
Edinburgh ran an independent date-letter cycle until 1975, when it joined the unified UK sequence. Pre-1759 dating relies on the deacon's mark rather than a date letter. The Edinburgh Assay Office publishes its chart on its hallmarking pages.
Faster: the main UK Silver Hallmarks Identifier walks you through standard mark, town mark, cycle, and letter step by step and prints the year. Use the chart further down this page if you prefer to scan visually.
Click the letter stamped on your piece. The chart below shows every year Edinburgh used that letter, with the actual glyph image alongside — match the font and shield shape to narrow it to one year.
If your piece’s town mark doesn’t match the Three-towered castle, try one of the other active offices:
For closed historical offices — Chester, Newcastle, Exeter, York, Glasgow — and Dublin, see the main identifier; full per-office cycle data is wired into the wizard for those too.
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