Edinburgh Assay Office marks: the castle, the thistle and the lion rampant

From the Act of 1457

Scottish hallmarking begins with an Act of 1457, which the Edinburgh Assay Office’s own history describes as the oldest surviving Act of Parliament referencing hallmarking. The three-towered castle, drawn from the city arms of Edinburgh, was first applied in 1485, and the Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh received a royal charter from James VII in 1687. The castle is still struck on Scottish-assayed pieces today.

For most of its history, Edinburgh was the only assay office in Scotland. Glasgow had a separate office for a period (1819 to 1964) using a tree-fish-bell-bird town mark, but it closed in the mid-20th century. Edinburgh is Scotland’s remaining assay office; Scottish-made objects are not restricted to being assayed there.

GoldPaid is not the Edinburgh Assay Office and cannot hallmark anything. To contact the office, or to send work for marking, use its own site at edinburghassayoffice.co.uk. Items are submitted under a registered sponsor’s mark, which how to get an item hallmarked in the UK explains.

Reading the castle

1. Find the row of punches inside the shank, on the clasp, or on the back of the pendant.
2. Read the standard mark first to anchor the rest.
3. Identify the three-towered castle in its shield. On older pieces the shield outline may be more elaborate.
4. Read the date letter if present using the appropriate Edinburgh chart for the period; historical cycles must not be confused with the modern system.
5. Read the sponsor mark, usually two or three initials in a rectangular punch.

Use the right date-letter chart

A date letter is a year of hallmarking, not a complete biography of an object. An older piece can contain a later replacement part, and a family account of when it was bought can differ from the hallmark year without either being a deliberate error. Record which component carries the letter before applying the result to a whole brooch, case or service.

Compare the letter, its case, its typeface and the surrounding shield together. Letters recur, so an isolated A cannot identify one year across every Edinburgh period. The office’s own announcement for 2025 records a new A following the previous Z and explains the change of surrounding design. That is a useful reminder to use the correct chart, rather than treating an alphabet letter as a universal date code.

If no date letter is present, do not manufacture a year from the castle alone. The date letter is optional in the modern UK system. Other evidence, including a registered sponsor, documentation and the object’s construction, may narrow a period, but a range should remain a range. For a written inventory, “Edinburgh hallmark; date letter not identified” is clearer than a precise year inferred from an indistinct photograph.

Use Edinburgh’s archive and prepare a specialist enquiry

An enquiry is easier to answer when it contains both the whole object and close-ups. Photograph the castle, the fineness mark, the sponsor’s mark and any date letter together where possible. Include a second image showing where those punches sit on the object. If a removable lid or clasp carries different marks, label its photograph separately rather than combining the two groups into a single transcription.

Write the visible letters exactly, using a question mark for an uncertain character. Describe the shield as well as the initials, and keep your proposed identification separate from the observation. A line such as “possibly AB, rounded rectangular surround” tells a researcher what is visible without claiming a confirmed sponsor. Add dimensions and the type of object when they help distinguish similar entries.

Edinburgh provides an online hallmarking archive, but its archive page states that it does not employ an archivist and cannot answer individual enquiries. It also does not provide valuations. Use the available records first and take unresolved attribution questions to an appropriate specialist. A register entry may identify the submitting sponsor without proving who made every part. Keep any specialist conclusion with the photographs and preserve its stated limitations.

A castle does not decide the sale route

The assay office and the place of manufacture are different questions. An Edinburgh mark establishes the relevant assay-office identification when genuine; it does not by itself prove that a workshop in Scotland made the object. Similarly, an object with Scottish design or family provenance need not carry Edinburgh marks. Describe the evidence accurately instead of using the castle as a substitute for a complete origin history.

For a quaich, brooch or provincial silver item, consider whether design, attribution and condition justify a specialist opinion before a metal sale. Do not clean or alter an uncertain mark to force a reading. The sponsor-mark identification guide helps separate registration from manufacture. A commercial offer and an historical attribution can both be useful, but they answer different questions and neither automatically establishes the other.

The thistle and the lion rampant

Older Edinburgh silver also carries the thistle, used between 1759 and 1975 as the silver standard mark for Edinburgh. The lion rampant replaced the thistle as Edinburgh’s sterling silver standard mark in 1975 and is still in use today. From 1975 onwards the standard system was harmonised across the UK and Edinburgh marks the modern numeric standards.

Common Edinburgh pieces

Scottish 9ct and 18ct rings, Edinburgh-assayed quaich bowls, Celtic-revival brooches and 19th-century Scottish silver flatware are all common in domestic UK collections. Edinburgh-marked Victorian and Edwardian jewellery often carries especially fine sponsor marks because the Scottish trade produced highly skilled craft work.

A note on Scottish provincial marks

Provincial Scottish silver was historically marked by silversmiths in Aberdeen, Banff, Dundee, Inverness, Perth, Glasgow and other burghs, sometimes without a formal assay office. These pieces carry maker initials and town letters but not always a standard mark. Identification is a specialist field. A Scottish place of manufacture does not require an Edinburgh assay-office mark.

How the castle is used in valuation

The castle confirms where a piece was assayed, and the standard mark records the purity claimed for it at that point. Neither says anything about what has happened to the metal since. Inspection and appropriate testing, including XRF readings at the points examined, help assess the present object; and where the reading agrees with the punch, the offer is built on the tested weight and purity and the live precious-metal market. How a tested weight and purity become a written offer is set out step by step, and selling gold jewellery by post covers the route for Edinburgh-marked pieces as for any other.

Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market. Your parcel travels on Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed, tracked and signed for. Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used. GoldPaid can confirm the appropriate postal option before you post. If the lot may be worth more than £2,500, tell us first and we can split it across more than one prepaid label at no charge. See how to sell gold by post.

From the Act of 1457 to a modern pendant

The Edinburgh castle is one of the more romantic marks in the UK system. It connects a 21st-century pendant to statute passed in 1457 through a single small punch. The system is alive and working. Pieces leaving the Edinburgh office in 2026 still carry the same three-towered profile that came off the bench five centuries ago.