UK makers’ marks on gold and silver: how to identify them and what they are worth

What the mark is, and what it is not

The sponsor’s mark is one of the three compulsory punches in a UK hallmark, alongside the standard (fineness) mark and the assay office mark; the date letter has been optional since 1999. It has been legally required alongside British hallmarks since a statute of 1363. The name has changed over time. You will see it called the maker’s mark, the maker’s initials, the workshop mark, or the responsibility mark, but the current legal term in the UK is sponsor’s mark. A named maker can lift a piece well above its metal, which is the whole point of checking before anything goes to selling antique gold.

The mark is registered by the person or company legally responsible for submitting the piece for assay. That may be:

• The actual workshop or silversmith who made the piece.
• The retailer who commissioned it from a workshop.
• The importer who brought a foreign-made piece into the UK for assay.
• A trade sponsor who submits work on behalf of smaller workshops.

The mark tells you who submitted the piece. It does not always tell you who physically made it. On retailer-marked pieces (Asprey, Garrard, Mappin & Webb), the actual workshop is usually a subcontractor whose own mark does not appear on the finished piece.

How to read the shield

The sponsor’s mark always sits inside a shield outline, and the outline is part of the registered mark. It helps tell apart two sponsors with the same initials, so read the shape as carefully as the letters. It is not a code for the type of business: the shape alone will not tell you whether the sponsor was a sole trader, a partnership or a company. For the Birmingham anchor and the maker’s marks beside it, the Birmingham anchor hallmark guide works through real examples.

The initials are almost always the first letters of a personal name (John Smith = JS) or a firm name (Deakin & Francis = D&F). Some historic firms use full stops between letters, some do not. Some use dates within the punch. The rules have varied over 660 years, so a mark that looks unusual is not automatically fake. It may just be old.

Where to look the mark up

The four British assay offices, London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh, hold the master records of registered marks. Dublin, part of the UK hallmarking system until 1922, still operates under Irish law. Chester (closed 1962) and Glasgow (closed 1964) marks also appear on older pieces. Public tools:

• Assay Office London’s trace-a-hallmark service: you email clear images and a description of the marks, covering historic and recent London marks.
• Birmingham Assay Office’s date letter archive, which covers every letter the office has applied since 1773, for a one-off charge stated on its site.
• The Silver Society and Silver Collectors' online guides, enthusiast-maintained references with photos of famous marks and their variations.
• Culme, John: The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, Jewellers and Allied Traders 1838–1914, the standard reference book for Victorian and Edwardian British trade. Two volumes, still in print. Any decent auction house or good reference library will have a copy.
• Grimwade, Arthur: London Goldsmiths 1697–1837, the definitive reference for 18th and early 19th century London marks.
• Jackson, Sir Charles: Silver and Gold Marks of England, Scotland and Ireland, the classic single-volume reference, now over a century old but still widely used.

For a piece worth serious money, do not rely on a single online image match. Two marks with the same initials, same shield and same date letter can still belong to different registered sponsors. Cross-check against a printed reference, or pay an auction house or independent valuer for a definitive attribution.

British makers whose marks add value

A verified mark from any of the following typically lifts a piece above pure metal value. Prices vary enormously by piece, condition and current market, treat the notes as directional, not as a valuation.

• Asprey (London), luxury retailer, marks going back to the 19th century. Signed pieces in their original fitted case add strongly. Silverware and cufflinks are common finds.
• Mappin & Webb (London and Sheffield), royal warrant holder, extensive silverware and jewellery ranges. Marked pieces attract collectors, particularly Edwardian and Art Deco.
• Garrard & Co (London), Crown Jeweller from 1843 to 2007. Any well-preserved Garrard silverware or jewellery with the original case carries a premium.
• Deakin & Francis (Birmingham), cufflink and dress-accessory specialists since 1786, still trading. Verified marks on their signature enamel and stone-set cufflinks add material value.
• Boodle & Dunthorne / Boodles (Liverpool, Chester), long-established retailer. Chester-hallmarked pieces from before the office closed in 1962 are collected in their own right.
• Elkington & Co (Birmingham), a caveat rather than a headline. Elkington were the great pioneers of silver electroplate. Many Elkington pieces are electroplated base metal, not solid silver, and carry no assay mark. Only pieces with a genuine assay office hallmark are solid silver. Read carefully.
• Garrard’s, Hunt & Roskell, Storr & Mortimer, 19th-century royal-warrant retailers whose pieces command significant premiums when clearly marked.

Foreign makers whose UK-hallmarked pieces also add value include Tiffany & Co, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Boucheron. Pieces they imported for UK retail carry British import assay marks as well as the maker’s stamp.

Common mistakes when reading a mark

Six errors that trip people up most often when reading a mark:

1. Assuming a pretty name means value. A mark reading "T&Co" is not automatically Tiffany. The initials may match a hundred other historic sponsors. Verify against the full hallmark set (assay office, date letter, standard) before making claims.
2. Confusing the assay office punch with the maker’s mark. The leopard’s head (London), anchor (Birmingham) or Sheffield mark, the rose today (used on gold since 1904), the crown on silver struck before 1975, is the assay office. The maker is the separate punch of initials.
3. Confusing the standard mark with a maker’s mark. The lion passant (sterling silver), 750 (18ct gold) and similar are fineness marks, not maker’s marks.
4. Missing a mark that is very worn. On heavily used silver, the sponsor’s mark is often the first to wear away. Absence does not necessarily mean forgery, but it does make attribution harder.
5. Treating electroplate as solid silver. EPNS (electroplated nickel silver), EPBM (electroplated Britannia metal) and Sheffield plate carry maker’s marks but no assay office hallmark. They are not solid silver and have almost no scrap value.
6. Reading a foreign mark as British. German (800/1000 silver), continental European (830/1000), and American (STERLING) marks look superficially similar to UK marks. The assay office punch is the diagnostic. No British town punch means it is not British hallmarked.

Verifying a mark before you commit

If you suspect you have a signed piece with real premium, the process is:

1. Photograph the full hallmark set with a good camera phone, on a plain background, in daylight. Include the whole piece and a close-up of the marks.
2. Cross-check the sponsor’s initials, shield shape, assay office and date letter against a reference (Culme, Jackson, Grimwade or a verified online resource).
3. Email the photos to a specialist jewellery or silver auction house. Fellows (Birmingham), Woolley & Wallis (Salisbury), Bonhams and Tennants all provide free preliminary valuations by email.
4. If two independent sources confirm the maker, you have a piece worth taking to auction rather than scrap.
5. If the mark is ordinary trade, or cannot be verified, treat it as scrap value only.

What we do with maker-marked pieces

If your piece carries a sponsor’s mark that may add value, such as a signed Asprey cufflink pair, a Garrard salt cellar or a Deakin & Francis enamel set, send a photo of the mark on WhatsApp first and we will tell you how we would value it before you post anything. An auction house may do better for pieces like these.

We are not an auction house. Our business is metal, and we are honest about which pieces belong somewhere else. Plain trade-marked pieces are valued as metal. For signed pieces that deserve a saleroom, free return post is a standing offer.

Our full hallmark guide covers the four-punch system in order. For antique-specific selling, see selling antique gold in the UK. Plain trade-marked pieces are valued as metal, and how metal value is worked out from tested purity sets out the sums.