What Is A Hallmark? - Flora Bhattachary Fine Jewellery

What Is A Hallmark?

We hallmark all of our jewellery at The London Assay Office. Hallmarking is an ancient system of guaranteeing your metal which began way back in London in 1300, when Edward I required that precious metals of a certain fineness to be marked with a leopard head.

Today, in the UK it is still a legal requirement for precious metal items to be hallmarked. Any gold, item over 1g and platinum of 0.5g must be hallmarked. If you look very carefully, you will see that all of Flora's designs are marked with FAB - her maker's mark.

It is very difficult to know what an item of jewellery is made of just by looking at it or touching it. This is made harder as precious metals, such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium, are rarely used in their purest form. They are generally mixed with other metals to form an alloy that has the desired colour and strength.

Hallmarking acts as a protection for consumers by certifying the precious metal content of the piece so that the buyer knows that the item is genuinely what the seller says it is. A hallmark gives the buyer confidence that the products are genuinely what they say they are.

The mark is your assurance of the purity of our metals and it also tells you where the piece was hallmarked, and which designer or maker asked for the design to be hallmarked. 

The image below shows you what a full UK hallmark tells you:

  1. Who submitted the article for hallmarking (sponsor’s mark)
  2. What the final metal is made of (Metal fineness mark)
  3. Where the article was hallmarked (Assay office town mark)
  4. When the article was hallmarked (date letter) is optional

HallmarkIf you have any further questions regarding the hallmark or any of our jewellery and services, please feel free to contact us here. You can also read more about hallmarking on the London Assay Office website here.