![]() So it is no wonder that their date letter cycles are different. The Birmingham Assay Office cycles of 25 or 26 date letters started when the Birmingham office was founded in 1773, nearly 300 years later. For instance, London Assay Office cycles of date letters started in 1478, using the 20 letters a to u, excluding the letter j which didn't exist at the time. Then you must use a table of date letters appropriate for that office.Īt first sight British hallmarking seems very easy to understand, but there are many traps for the unwary. British assay offices all used different cycles of date letters, so to read a British hallmark date letter you must first identify at which assay office the item was hallmarked by identifying the assay office town mark. The 12 month period in which the item was hallmarked is indicated by a "date letter" which were used in "cycles", A for a certain period, B for the next and so on. British hallmarks also indicate to within 12 months of when the item was hallmarked, and this is of great interest to collectors. The principal use of a hallmark on silver or gold is to show the fineness of the metal sterling or Britannia for silver, the carat fineness for gold, e.g. Similar considerations apply to the word gold. Small amounts of alloy are allowed for practical reasons, but an item described as sterling silver must be at least 92.5% fine (pure) silver. In Britain it is illegal to describe something as silver unless it is principally composed of silver. It does not mean something that is silver coloured or silver plated. Please bear in mind that in this context “silver” means the element silver, number 48 on the periodic table. If you want some help, don't hesitate to email me, but do try to send me a clear picture or sketch of the mark you need help with. I can't (for copyright reasons apart from anything else) reproduce the information in Bradbury or Chaffers, but I hope the examples here will help you read the hallmarks in your own watch. However, I realised that many people with a watch that they have perhaps been given or inherited don't have ready access to these standard works, so on this page I show some examples of the British hallmarks that were found in any watch cases that were hallmarked before 1 June 1907, and which continued to be used in British manufactured watch cases after 1907. I started my pages about hallmarking to document information about imported watches, which is not readily available in the standard references such as Bradbury and Chaffers. Bocks and Rams: IWC and Stauffer Trademarks.New product: Leather and Sterling Alberts.Savonnette and Lépine Watches and Cases.Converted Wristwatches - Transitional? No.Bears Galore! Three Bears and 0♹35 Silver.Borgel 2: Taubert & Fils and Taubert Frères.Borgel 1: François Borgel and Louisa Borgel.Straps for Vintage Fixed Wire Lug Trench Watches or Officer's Wristwatches ![]()
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