What is a Hallmark?

What is a Hallmark?

By law in the UK if you are selling precious metal over the weight of  7.78 grams Silver, 1 gram of Gold/ Palladium or 0.5grams of Platinum it must be Hallmarked. This is a legal requirement.

A hallmark is a series of symbols that are marked onto precious metal like Gold and Silver.  The start of my hallmark has OCR written on it to define it is me as this is my initials. I work mostly in sterling silver so my hallmarks will say 925 stating what material the piece is made from.

When I send a batch of pieces to be hallmarked they are put through a process called 'Assaying' which is where they are tested to verify the precious metal content. My Hallmark is registered with Edinburgh assay office and one of the symbols in my hallmark is a castle representing the Edinburgh. 

Look at it as Who, What and Where.