Before you start
You need a magnifying glass (a phone camera zoomed in works), good raking light, and patience. Marks are often worn, struck off-center, or half-hidden under a monogram. Photograph them as you go; a clear picture of the marks is the single most useful thing you can send a dealer.
English hallmarks — the gold standard of marking
Since the 1300s, English silver has been tested and marked by assay offices, which makes it the most readable silver in the world. A full set usually shows four or five marks in a row:
- The standard mark. A lion passant (walking lion, facing left) means sterling. A figure of Britannia means the higher Britannia standard (95.8%), used 1697–1720 and occasionally since.
- The town mark. A leopard's head for London; an anchor for Birmingham; a crown for Sheffield (replaced by a rose in 1975); a castle for Edinburgh; a thistle or lion rampant on Scottish silver; a harp crowned for Dublin (Irish pieces also carry the figure of Hibernia). Chester, Exeter, Newcastle, York and Glasgow had their own marks before their offices closed.
- The date letter. A single letter in a shield whose shape, typeface and case change each cycle. With a chart (online or in any silver handbook), it pins the piece to a year.
- The maker's mark. Initials, sometimes in a shaped cartouche. The great names — Storr, Hennell, Bateman, Barnard — are documented, and so are thousands of provincial makers.
- The duty mark. A sovereign's head, struck 1784–1890 to show tax had been paid. If you see one, the piece is from that window.
What English marks don't tell you: condition, and whether the piece has been altered. A "let-in" mark — a genuine set of marks cut from a spoon and soldered into a later piece — is an old fraud; look for a solder line around the marks.
American marks — fewer rules, more names
The United States never had an assay system, so American marks are the maker's own, plus a standard word:
- COIN, PURE COIN, DOLLAR, STANDARD, PREMIUM — coin silver, roughly 90% pure, made from melted coins before the 1860s–70s. Earlier pieces often carry only the maker's name in a rectangle, sometimes with a pseudo-hallmark (an eagle, a head, a star) meant to look English. These are the most interesting American marks; early regional makers can be valuable.
- STERLING — the sterling standard, adopted by American makers from the mid-1800s and universal by about 1900. Often with 925 or 925/1000.
- Maker's symbols worth recognizing: a lion, anchor and G is Gorham (with a year symbol on older hollowware); an eagle, R and lion is Reed & Barton; Tiffany & Co. Makers with pattern and order numbers; Kirk of Baltimore marked 11 oz and later 10.15 under the city's old assay standards; Stieff, Wallace, Towle, Whiting, International, Dominick & Haff and Shreve each have documented marks.
- Pattern names and numbers on flatware — a great help, because complete sets are valued by pattern.
Continental marks — numbers and animals
- France: a Minerva head is the mark for first-standard silver (950) since 1838; a boar's head or crab appears on smaller items; earlier pieces carry more complex tax and guild marks. French silver is often of very high quality and correspondingly valued.
- Germany: a crescent moon and crown with 800, 835 or 925, used since 1888. Earlier German pieces carry city marks (Augsburg's pinecone, for instance) and are collected seriously.
- Austria-Hungary: a Diana head with a number for the standard; Russia: 84 (zolotnik, about 875) with a city or kokoshnik mark; Denmark: three towers, and the name Georg Jensen, which changes everything about the value; Italy: a star with a maker's number and 800 or 925; Mexico: 925 with an eagle and number (mid-century) or STERLING MEXICO; Taxco makers are collected.
- Sheffield plate (the old fused kind, c. 1740–1840) is usually unmarked or carries makers' pseudo-marks; it's copper with silver fused on, worn through at the edges, and collected for what it is.
The marks that mean "not silver"
EPNS, EP, A1, "Silverplate," "Quadruple plate," a maker's name alone with no standard word, "Nickel silver," "German silver," "Alpacca" — all plate or base metal. The full list, and the tells when there are no marks.
Reading a piece, start to finish
- Find every mark. Check the underside, inside the foot, the back of handles, under the lid, on the bezel of a tray.
- Identify the standard first — lion, STERLING, 925, 800, COIN. That decides what you're dealing with.
- Then the origin and date — town mark and date letter for English; maker's name and style for American; national marks for Continental.
- Then the maker. A great maker on an ordinary form can be worth many times an anonymous one.
- Then look at the whole piece: weight, quality of chasing and engraving, condition, repairs, replaced parts, and whether the marks belong to the object they're on.
When the marks say "call someone"
Britannia-standard pieces; anything with a duty mark; early American coin silver with a maker's name; French Minerva-marked hollowware; anything Jensen; any English piece with a great maker's initials; and any piece where the marks look older than the object. These are the ones that belong at a specialist auction rather than across a counter — and the ones we're happiest to see. How we place silver at auction.