UK Silver Hallmark Identification

Pick what you can see on your piece, one step at a time. The summary at the bottom updates as you go. This tool helps you read the marks; it won’t authenticate them (forgeries exist) or identify the maker. For the exact year of an Assay Office piece, use the city-specific pages.

Scope: this tool is built for UK silver hallmarks — the four UK Assay Offices (London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Edinburgh) plus the closed historical offices (Chester, Newcastle, Exeter, York, Glasgow). For Continental and non-European pieces we currently identify country of origin only — full date letters, maker registries, and regional variations are on the roadmap.

For the exact year — use the city-specific pages

Date letter cycles differ between Assay Offices, so they live on dedicated pages. Pick the office that matches the town mark on your piece:

What does 925 mean on silver?

925 means sterling silver — 92.5% pure silver, 7.5% other metal (typically copper for hardness). It’s the international standard fineness for solid silver and the most common mark you’ll see on a UK piece.

Where 925 appears tells you something about the piece:

• 925 alongside the Lion Passant + a town mark — UK-assayed sterling silver. The 925 number is a modern numerical reading of the same purity, applied since the 1973 Hallmarking Act and made compulsory under the 1999 amendments.
• 925 alone, no pictorial assay marks — usually modern jewellery, often imported. Still likely real sterling, but not UK-assayed.
• “.925” or “Sterling 925” — common on US and Mexican silver. Different jurisdiction, same fineness.
• 925 stamped onto a clearly-plated item — should not happen and usually indicates a fake. Plated items are stamped EPNS, A1, or similar; not 925.

Silver plate vs solid silver: how to tell them apart

Silver-plated items are base metal (often copper alloy or nickel silver) with a thin layer of silver bonded on top. They look very similar to solid silver but are worth a small fraction. The marks tell you which is which.

Solid silver carries assay marks

• A standard mark (Lion Passant, Britannia figure, or 925)
• A town mark (anchor, leopard’s head, rose, etc.)
• Usually a date letter and a maker’s mark

Silver plate carries plate-specific marks instead

• EPNS — Electro-Plated Nickel Silver. The base is nickel silver (a copper-nickel-zinc alloy with no actual silver), then electroplated.
• EPBM — Electro-Plated Britannia Metal. Base is Britannia metal (a tin alloy), then electroplated.
• A1 — a plate-quality grade meaning “heavily plated”. Not a hallmark and not a sign of solid silver.
• Sheffield Plate — older fused-plate technique (silver fused to copper), pre-electroplating. Antique and collectible in its own right, but still not solid silver.
• “Silver Plate”, “Silver on Copper”, “Quadruple Plate” — explicit plate descriptions in plain English.

Quick rule: if you see EPNS, A1, or any wording with the word “plate”, it’s plated. If you see a Lion Passant + a town mark, it’s solid silver. If you see only 925 and nothing else, it’s probably solid sterling but not UK-assayed.

Rare UK silver hallmarks worth knowing

Most UK silver you’ll come across at car boots, charity shops, and estate sales is London or Birmingham, plus modern Sheffield. The rarer marks come from Assay Offices that closed or from very early periods — those pieces command a premium with collectors.

Closed Assay Office marks (collector premium)

• York — five lions on a cross. Office closed 1858. Pieces are uncommon.
• Newcastle — three castles. Office closed 1884. Particularly sought after for Georgian pieces.
• Exeter — three-towered castle (visually similar to Edinburgh’s, but English). Closed 1883.
• Chester — three wheat-sheaves and a sword. Closed 1962. Popular with Edwardian collectors.
• Glasgow — tree, fish, and bell (from the city’s coat of arms). Closed 1964. Scottish silver from this office is collectable.

Early London marks

• Pre-1478 uncrowned Leopard’s Head — the original London mark from 1300 onwards, before the crown was added in 1478. Pieces are extremely rare and usually museum-grade.
• 1697–1720 compulsory Britannia silver — for those years all English silver was 958 fineness, marked with the Britannia figure and a Lion’s Head Erased. After 1720 sterling returned and Britannia became optional.

Other unusual marks

• Foreign import marks — UK-assayed imported silver since 1904 carries a different town-mark variant for each office (the marks are marked “F” or have alternate shapes). Lower demand than domestic marks.
• Commemorative marks — Silver Jubilee 1935, Coronation 1953, Silver Jubilee 1977, Millennium 2000, Diamond Jubilee 2012, Platinum Jubilee 2022, Charles III Coronation 2023. Voluntary, but they pin the date to a specific year.

Continental silver: 800, 833, 900, 950 marks

If you flip pieces from car boots, charity shops, or France/Belgium sourcing trips, you’ll see numerical marks that aren’t UK sterling 925. They’re still real silver, just at a different fineness, recognised under the International Convention on Hallmarks.

• 800 — 80% silver. Common on German Reichssilber (often with a half-moon and crown stamp) and Italian Continental pieces.
• 833 — 83.3% silver. Common on Portuguese, Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) and Dutch silver.
• 900 — 90% silver. Russian, Eastern European, and historical “coin silver” pieces (silver coins melted down for tableware).
• 950 — 95% silver, the French standard (“Premier Titre”). French pieces from 1838 onwards usually carry an additional Minerva head punch alongside the 950.

All four are below or above UK sterling (925), so cannot legally be sold as “sterling silver” in the UK without qualification — describe them honestly as “Continental silver, 800 fineness” etc.

“German silver” is not silver

This trips up resellers regularly. “German silver” — also called nickel silver, Alpaca, or Argentan — contains no silver at all. It’s an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc that resembles silver in colour. The name is a centuries-old misnomer.

Quick rule: if a piece is marked “German silver”, “Nickel silver”, or “Alpaca” and has no fineness number, it’s base metal. Genuine German solid silver carries a fineness mark (usually 800), often accompanied by a half-moon and crown.

Silver marks from outside Europe — country of origin

What we cover here: country of origin only. We’re working on adding date letters, maker registries, and regional variations for the systems below — right now this section just helps you pin down which country a piece is from. For full identification, follow the references at the bottom of each entry.

Pieces from outside the UK and Continental Europe come up regularly at car boots and estate sales. They use different mark systems — this is a starter, not a complete reference.

• Mexican silver — usually marked “925” or “Sterling 925” with a small letter-and-number assay code (e.g. TL-44) introduced in 1979 to identify the maker. Pre-1979 Mexican silver often carries an “eagle assay mark” with a number. Taxco silversmiths use specific maker punches.
• Russian silver — pre-1899: city mark + assay-master initials + standard (84 zolotnik = 875/1000, 88 = 916, 91 = 947). 1899–1908: Cyrillic woman’s head (kokoshnik) facing left. Post-1908: kokoshnik facing right. Soviet era: hammer and sickle. Fabergé pieces are heavily faked.
• Persian / Iranian silver — often unmarked or with stylised Arabic/Farsi script and figural punches. Many pieces test ~875–900 fineness via acid kit. No standardised hallmark system pre-1970s.
• Chinese silver — Export silver (1700s–1940s) often marked with European-looking pseudo-marks plus a Chinese maker character. Common stamps: “CHINA”, “Made in China”, retailer name (Wang Hing, Hung Chong) plus Chinese characters. Modern Chinese silver: numeric fineness (S925, 990).
• Indian silver — rarely hallmarked historically; modern pieces use a BIS hallmark (since 2000) with a triangle, fineness, jeweller’s mark, and date letter.
• US silver — no national hallmarking system. Sterling silver carries “STERLING” or “925”. Coin silver (pre-1860) typically tests 900 fineness, marked “COIN”, “C”, “PURE COIN”, or simply with the maker’s name. Major makers: Gorham, Tiffany, Reed & Barton, Towle, Wallace, Kirk & Son.

For full identification of non-UK pieces, cross-reference with the relevant national archive or a specialist reference (e.g. Marks of American Silversmiths by Dorothy T. Rainwater, The Encyclopedia of Russian Silversmiths). If there’s a country we should add deeper coverage for, let us know.

Quick at-home tests for real silver

If the marks are worn, missing, or you suspect a fake, a few simple tests narrow it down before you spend money on professional appraisal. None of these is conclusive on its own — combine at least two.

• Magnet test — silver is non-magnetic. A strong neodymium magnet should slide off a flat silver surface and not stick. If it sticks firmly, the piece is iron, steel, or a magnetic alloy — not silver. (Caveat: silver plate over a non-magnetic core also passes this test.)
• Ice test — silver has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal. An ice cube placed on solid silver melts visibly faster than on most other metals. Best for thick flat pieces.
• Ring test — a sterling coin or piece tapped against a hard surface produces a clear, ringing tone that lasts 1–2 seconds. Plated and base metals produce a dull thud.
• Smell test — real silver has no strong odour. Cheap silver-plate over copper alloys often has a faintly metallic or sour smell when warmed in the hand.
• Acid test kit — a small dropper bottle of nitric acid, available for £10–20 from jewellery suppliers. A drop on an inconspicuous spot of solid silver turns creamy white; on plate over copper it turns green; on base metal it foams. Reliable but invasive (small mark left).
• XRF scan — non-destructive, gives exact fineness. Available at scrap yards, some Assay Offices, and pawnbrokers. The gold standard if you have a piece to verify.

For ambiguous high-value pieces, get an Assay Office or auctioneer to examine before scrapping or selling.

What if the marks are worn or missing?

Worn, partial, or absent marks come up constantly. Some pragmatic approaches:

• Photograph in side-light against dark background. Hallmarks are punched into the metal so they cast tiny shadows. A phone torch held at a steep angle (~20° from the surface) makes faint marks legible that look invisible head-on.
• Use a 10× jeweller’s loupe. Worn marks usually have at least the outline of the original shape preserved. The shield around the date letter is often the last thing to wear away.
• Check uncommon spots. Marks aren’t always on the obvious flat surface. Try: the underside of feet, inside the foot rim, the rim’s outer edge, on the handle near the join, on the lid’s underside.
• Pieces with no marks at all. Could be: pre-1300 (rare), under-weight (UK exemption is <7.78g for silver), illegally unmarked, deliberately unmarked artist pieces, or non-silver mistaken for silver. Run a magnet + acid + XRF if you think it’s real.
• Crowdsourced ID. Communities like r/Silverbugs, r/Antiques, and r/whatsthisworth resolve unknown marks well, especially with clear macro photos.

Should I scrap, sell, or keep?

This is the most asked question on r/Silverbugs and r/Antiques after “is it real?”. Quick decision framework:

• Keep / sell as a piece if any of: it has a desirable maker (named silversmith, recognisable retailer), it’s pre-1900, the form is collected (Georgian flatware, Edwardian tea services, Art Deco jewellery), or it’s in good condition and complete (no missing parts).
• Scrap (sell to a refiner) if it’s heavily damaged, modern (post-1970) machine-made flatware, no maker premium, broken with missing parts, or it’s been polished to the point of losing detail. Scrap price = weight × fineness × spot price × refiner discount (~85–92% of melt).
• Don’t over-polish before selling. Original patina can add value; aggressive polishing removes detail and signals “trying to flip” to dealers.
• Test before deciding. If you can’t confirm it’s solid silver via marks + a quick test, get an XRF scan before scrapping. Plated pieces are worth almost nothing as scrap; misidentifying a plated piece as solid is a common mistake.

How to read a UK silver hallmark — order and method

Marks are usually struck close together, often four to six small punches in a row on a flat or hidden surface (the foot of a cup, the underside of a tray, the rim of a bowl). The order they appear in is not fixed, but the typical reading order from the maker’s perspective is:

1. Maker’s mark first — usually initials, sometimes with a symbol or shaped border.
2. Standard mark — the Lion Passant or Britannia figure.
3. Town mark — the Assay Office.
4. Date letter — in a shaped shield.
5. Optional duty mark — sovereign’s head, 1784–1890 only.
6. Optional commemorative mark.

Tips:

• Use a 10× jeweller’s loupe. Marks are usually 1–3 mm tall and worn pieces hide them.
• Photograph the marks against a dark background with bright side-lighting. The shadows cast by the punches make them readable.
• Compare against the Assay Office’s published charts — links in the Resources section below.

How the four hallmarks fit together

1. Standard mark — what metal and how pure.
2. Assay Office mark — where it was tested.
3. Date letter — when. Office-specific cycle.
4. Sponsor’s or Maker’s mark — who registered it.

The duty mark and commemorative marks are additional, sitting alongside the four core marks to help narrow the date.

What this tool can and cannot do

What it does: reads the marks you select and tells you the metal, the assay office, and the narrowest date range possible without the date letter.

What it doesn’t:

• It cannot identify the exact year — that needs the date letter. Use the city pages.
• It cannot identify the maker. Maker’s marks are registered with each Assay Office; matching needs the office’s register.
• It cannot tell you if marks are genuine. Forgeries exist, especially on plated items struck to look like solid silver.
• It cannot give a valuation.

Resources for date letters and maker’s marks

• The Assay Office London — theassayofficelondon.co.uk
• Birmingham Assay Office — theassayoffice.co.uk
• The Sheffield Assay Office — assayoffice.co.uk
• Edinburgh Assay Office — edinburghassayoffice.co.uk
• Goldsmiths’ Company — thegoldsmiths.co.uk (compulsory hallmarking authority)

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