The English hallmark system was born in 1300, when King Edward I ordered that every gold or silver
item should be tested for fineness by the officers of the Goldsmiths' Guild in London before it could
be offered for sale, and that a mark should be stamped on the piece as a guarantee that this test (or
‘assay’) had been passed. The design adopted was the ‘Leopard's Head’ as seen below. In 1363 an additional
provision was made that each piece should bear a mark identifying the maker — at first a symbol, but
later (from about 1600) two or occasionally more letters.
In 1478 a third mark was added; a letter
of the alphabet to indicate the year in which the piece was assayed The letters used were twenty in
number, running from A to U with J omitted, and the design was changed at the end of each 20-year cycle.
As a result of slight irregularities during the late seventeenth century, the eleventh cycle started
in 1716 rather than 1718, and this pattern continued without further change until the system was reorganised
in the 1970s.
By this time the original Leopard's Head had lost its identity as a guarantee of
fineness and had come to be regarded as a specific identifier for the London office (other towns were
by now privileged to carry out assays and had their own town marks). Accordingly, in 1544 the goldsmiths
introduced a new mark to denote the purity of the metal; this was the Lion Passant, a heraldic lion
walking to the left. It showed that the silver was 92.5% pure (sterling standard).
This completes
the list of marks commonly found on watches. In theory, items made between 1784 and 1890 should additionally
bear a portrait of the reigning monarch, testifying that a tax on silver in force between those years
had been paid; but after a few years this was generally omitted on small items such as watch-cases.
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