Hallmarking

Below is the Hallmarking notice. This is to help you understand what your hallmark means. Generally speaking, any precious metal item sold as “Gold”, “Silver”, “Platinum” or “Palladium” by law has to be hallmarked. There are some exceptions to this rule which are stated in the table below.

Hallmarking is when a sponsor sends an item to an Assay Office to be Assayed. A sponsor isn’t necessarily the manufacturer of the item. The Assay Office will access the item to figure out what percentage of precious metal they contain.

All precious metals have different “Fineness” levels this is a percentage expressed as parts per thousand. You often hear people asking if something is “sterling silver” Sterling is a Fineness level, 925 parts per thousand so 92.5% silver.

Similarly, Carat is also a fineness level. 9ct – 37.5% 14ct – 58.5% 18ct – 75% & 22ct – 91.6%. These are minimum percentages if something measured at 70% gold it can still be hallmarked but only at 14ct, not 18ct.

More information can be found on the Assay Office websites