Hallmarking

In January 2024, The Goldsmiths’ Company received an extraordinary gift. Chip deMatteo, a silversmith from Virginia in the US, arrived at Goldsmiths’ Hall and presented Dr Timothy Schroder with two pieces of antique silver and an old tin that had once contained packets of Phillies cigars. The writing on the tin proclaimed them to be ‘America’s greatest value cigar’, which, at five cents each, they surely were.

But instead of cigars, the tin contained 42 steel punches, each cut with an 18th-century London hallmark, a date letter or a sponsor’s (otherwise known as maker’s) mark.

The Goldsmiths' Hallmark Authentication Committee (GHAC) - formerly The Antique Plate Committee (APC) - was founded in 1939, and is a unique, internationally renowned body, that adjudicates and advises on: the authenticity of an article’s provenance; whether an illegal alteration or an addition has been made; and if the hallmark applied to it is genuine or a forgery.

To commemorate the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III, Assay Offices across the UK have issued a commemorative component mark which can be applied to all precious metals in addition to the hallmark. Watch our expert engineers and technicians creating and applying the mark in London.

Those lucky enough to go behind the scenes at the London Assay Office this year will find the historic leopard’s head hallmark being applied in a new, state-of-the-art workshop facility.

Watch a series of four short films by filmmaker Lucy Emms, exploring the process and meeting the people behind the creation, application and use of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Mark.

Sophia Tobin, Goldsmiths' Company Deputy Librarian, discusses the enduring necessity, appeal, and beauty of one of the worlds oldest forms of consumer protection - the Hallmark.

Hallmarking has long been celebrated as the UK’s oldest continuous form of consumer protection, but how do you make such a venerable institution serve makers and buyers in the 21st century?

Precious metal has been a source of fascination for human beings since earliest times, and assaying is mentioned in the Bible as far back as the book of Isaiah (8th century BCE). It is little wonder that references to assaying have been absorbed into our language, becoming subject to semantic change and acquiring wider cultural significance.

The quarterly meetings of the Goldsmiths’ Hallmark Authentication Committee are usually concerned with mundane items such as tankards converted into hot water jugs, re-shaped dinner plates and rose bowls constructed from meat-dish covers. However, just occasionally a group of pieces is brought to the Committee’s attention which gives real cause for concern.

At the Snaresbrook Crown Court in London on Thursday 25 September 2008, Mr. Peter Ashley-Russell was sentenced to a total of three years’ imprisonment for offences under the Forgery Act 2006, four offences relating to the faking and forging of antique silver. Ashley-Russell was responsible for the faking and forging of 39 antique spoons, forks, coffee pots and a tazza made of silver. The fraudulent activities included conversion of spoons to forks to increase their value and the application of fake hallmarks using imitation punches that Peter Ashley-Russell had forged.