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A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of metal, mostly to certify the content of noble metals—such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium. In a more general sense, the term hallmark is used to refer to any standard of quality.
Assay offices are institutions set up to assay (test the purity of) precious metals. This is often done to protect consumers from buying fake items. Upon successful completion of an assay (i.e. if the metallurgical content is found be equal or better than that claimed by the maker and it otherwise conforms to the prevailing law) the assay offices typically stamp a hallmark on the item to ...
The BIS Hallmark is a hallmarking system for gold as well as silver jewellery sold in India, certifying the purity of the metal. [1] [2] It certifies that the piece of jewellery conforms to a set of standards laid by the Bureau of Indian Standards, the national standards organization of India. India is the second biggest market for gold and its ...
Initially, hallmarks consisted of the goldsmiths' proper mark which was the maker's mark originally used to identify the silversmith or goldsmith responsible for making the article. The fineness mark, the crowned harp, was applied to 22 carat gold and sterling silver, which was silver of a standard of 925 parts of fine silver in each 1,000.
The hallmark indicates the amount of precious metal in the alloy in parts per thousand (the millesimal fineness). In addition to indicating the town where the item was marked, a unique sponsor's or maker's mark identifies the item's origin and a date letter to represent the year of marking. Traditional hallmarks
For example, knowing that standard 18-carat yellow gold consists of 75% gold, 12.5% silver and the remaining 12.5% of copper (all by mass), the volume of pure gold in this alloy will be 60% since gold is much denser than the other metals used: 19.32 g/cm 3 for gold, 10.49 g/cm 3 for silver and 8.96 g/cm 3 for copper.
The anchor mark no longer indicates that an item was assayed in Birmingham. In July 2016 Birmingham Assay Office began striking its hallmark via a subsidiary in Mumbai, India. In 2018 the British Hallmarking Council announced that hallmarks struck overseas must be different from domestic hallmarks. Beginning in early 2019 a modified version of ...
The assay office marks - from left to right, London, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Edinburgh. The Edinburgh Assay Office is the last remaining Assay Office in Scotland and one of four which remain in the United Kingdom. The Edinburgh Assay Office traces its hallmarking history back to 1457 [1] when the first hallmarking act of Scotland was created ...