United Kingdom Hallmarking

While most of our silver is soured from abroad, customers can buy our products with confidence of the high quality of our silver meeting or exceeding UK hallmarking standards. Hallmarking has a long history in the UK with Goldsmiths Hall hallmarking precious metal since 1300. We comply and welcome UK hallmarking legislation and the Hallmarking act (1973) that protects the manufacturer, retailer and the consumer. It is not just our UK silver that is hallmarked when appropriate as all of our silver from aboard that is over 7.78grams in weight is hallmarked by the London Goldsmiths Hall Assay Office. There are four independent Assay Offices. At the Assay Office silver is independently tested and appropriately hallmarked to reflect the silver content. The silver Jewellery is tested (assayed) and then stamped with an internationally recognised standard of fineness, illustrated in parts per thousand, hence 800 (silver), 925 (Sterling Silver) and 958 (Britannica Silver). For example as our Karen Hill Tribe silver has a high silver content this is hallmarked with the Britannica stamp, it’s bright colour reflects its high purity. Most silver used in jewellery is 925 hence sterling silver meaning the jewellery is 92.5% silver with the remainder being base metal. Silver jewellery is not 100% silver as it needs a very small quantity of other metal (copper) to become workable for jewellery.

The UK traditional hallmark comprises of different standard component parts these are Sponsor’s or Maker’s mark which for the Silver Jewellery Cabin is the letters KAY, a Millesimal Fineness mark reflecting the amount of silver in parts per thousand, the Assay Office mark which for London is a Leopard’s head. In addition to these traditional three standard hallmark components Goldsmiths Hall add a Traditional Fineness Mark to reflect the type of metal and the standard of that metal and also a date letter. Simply having a manufactures stamp for example 925 is not a hallmark. All UK hallmarks are made of the same three core components by law and are also differentiated by the sponsor’s unique mark due to the letter and shield combination present on our own assigned punch for the hallmarking. This means all the silver we hallmark can be traced to us.
While most of our silver is from overseas we also do supply some UK silver when using a UK supplier the silver carries the hallmark from our supplier and once again this is always hallmarked when weighing above 7.78grams. We only ever source from high quality reputable suppliers to provide you with high quality unusual and beautiful items of jewellery.