understanding hallmarks...
The quiz has been developed from a booklet published by the Assay Offices of Great Britain. This booklet covers London 1678 to 1974, Birmingham 1773 to 1974, Sheffield 1773 to 1974 and Edinburgh 1744 to 1974.
From 1975 all United Kingdom Assay Offices use the same date letters.
The Hallmarks has been written using Java NetBeans 5.5.1 To run the program you need to install the java runtime environment, already on most computers that have internet access.
The minimum version you need is java release 1.6.0_02, available from Sun.
The Hallmarks program requires 5mb of disk space and is run from the executalbe Hallmarks.jar file.
It contains what can be considered duplicate marks, for instance Birmingham 1786 and Birmingham 1812 both have the same City, Standard and Date Letter marks “O” making it difficult to be certain your response is correct.
This can make dating an article of silver difficult; you need more information, makers’ marks and an appreciation for design styles used. It could also be that an item of silver only came into use after a specific date and this gives you more clues to hone in on the correct date.
The quiz can be useful in helping you to learn hallmarks and enhance your collecting experience.
Try to remember when sequences started, how many letters were used in the sequence and if letters were omitted. Remember the duty stamp started in 1784 and lasted until 1891.
Britannia silver standard mark introduced in 1697 until 1720 when sterling was reintroduced. You can find the Britannia mark on silver after 1720 as it is still a valid standard but it is rarely used after 1735.
The web version of the quiz on this site is abridged to 50 dates each for the assay offices of Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Sheffield. A full PC version is available covering the start dates mentioned above right through to 1999.