Silver Hallmarks and Silverware Markings: What Each Means

Almost every mark on silverware answers one of three questions: how much silver is in it, who made it, and when. Read them in that order and most pieces sort themselves out in under a minute.

The content mark is the one that decides whether the piece is solid silver or a thin skin of silver over a cheaper metal. In the United States the rule is statutory. Under the federal marking law at 15 U.S.C. 296, an article may not be stamped sterling unless it contains nine hundred and twenty-five one-thousandth parts pure silver, and the actual metal may fall short of the marked standard by no more than four one-thousandth parts. The same section sets coin at nine hundred parts per thousand with the same four-part tolerance. When the whole object is tested together with its solder and assembly alloys, the law allows a wider gap of ten parts per thousand, which is why a soldered teapot can test slightly lower than a spoon of the same standard.

Anything that is not a content mark in that sense is either a maker, a pattern, a plating grade or a sales claim.

A bare three-digit number is a millesimal fineness mark, that is, parts of silver per thousand.

• 925 is sterling. It is the British and modern international standard and the number the United Kingdom uses as its compulsory fineness mark.
• 900 is coin silver, the old American standard, and also the usual standard of Chinese export silver.
• 800, 830 and 835 are continental European standards. They are still solid silver, just less of it.
• 958 is Britannia silver, a higher British standard.
• 999 is fine silver, used mostly for bullion and modern jewellery findings.

A number with no other mark beside it is worth treating with mild suspicion on a small item, because a number is the easiest thing in the world to stamp. On British work the number should be accompanied by a sponsor's mark and an assay office mark; those three are the compulsory components of a UK hallmark. For a fuller breakdown of the two American standards, see 925 versus coin silver.

Plated marks are wordier than solid silver marks, because a plating mark is a sales claim rather than a legal standard.

• EP is electroplate. EPNS is electro-plated nickel silver: a nickel, copper and zinc base with a silver skin. EPBM is electro-plated Britannia metal, a pewter-like base.
• A1, AA, triple plate and quadruple plate describe how heavy the deposit was said to be. They are manufacturers' grades, not assayed standards.
• Silver on copper, German silver, nickel silver and alpaca all describe base metal. None contains sterling.

A British lion passant never appears next to EPNS, because the assay office does not hallmark plate. A stamped crown, shield and letter on a plated item is a trade device imitating a hallmark. See silver plate company marks for the firms behind those stamps.

British silver carries the most informative marks in the world because the marking is done by an independent assay office, not by the maker.

The compulsory components today are the sponsor's mark (the firm or person who submitted the article), the millesimal fineness mark and the assay office mark. Two traditional marks usually travel with them: the lion passant, a walking lion with one forepaw raised, which signals sterling fineness, and the date letter. The date letter changes every year on 1 January, and the letter, its case, its typeface and the shape of the shield around it are all varied so that each combination points to one year only.

The date letter stopped being compulsory in January 1999. London still applies it as standard unless a customer asks otherwise, so its absence on a modern piece proves nothing. Under the Hallmarking Act 1973 it is an offence to describe an article as silver in trade if it is not hallmarked, but articles weighing under 7.78 grams are exempt, which is why light jewellery often carries only a 925.

Work from the marks outward, and do the destructive tests last or not at all.

• Photograph the mark first, before any cleaning. Light it from a low angle so the punched lines throw shadows, and do not polish tarnish off; a dark mark reads better than a bright one.
• Count the punches. A full British set is three to five separate strikes, each in its own shield, usually struck at slightly different depths because they were applied by hand. One long stamped word in a single line is an American or continental maker's mark instead.
• Compare the mark against the object. A Georgian-looking teapot with a crisp modern typeface is a reproduction or a transplanted mark.
• A magnet test only rules things out. Silver is not attracted to a magnet, but neither are copper, brass or nickel silver.
• Definitive testing is XRF, the method assay offices use to measure silver content. Jewellers and assay offices will run it, and it does not mark the piece. Acid testing does, so keep it for scrap.

Turn the piece over, fill the frame with the mark, and take a second photograph of the whole object. Photograph it and the app identifies it, and these pages let you check the number and the plating grade against a written source.

The London Assay Office describes a full traditional UK hallmark as five marks, and this is usually what people mean by the five standard silver marks:

• Sponsor's mark (compulsory): the initials of the maker or the firm that sent the piece for testing.
• Traditional fineness mark (optional, applied as standard): for sterling, the lion passant.
• Millesimal fineness mark (compulsory): the purity in parts per 1,000, such as 925.
• Assay office mark (compulsory): the town mark, such as the leopard's head for London.
• Date letter (not compulsory): changes every 1 January.

Older silver can show a different fifth mark. From 1 December 1784 until 1890 Britain taxed silver, and the assay office struck a small profile of the reigning monarch to show the duty had been paid (Wikipedia, Silver hallmarks). A sovereign's head therefore places a piece between 1784 and 1890 before you even read the date letter. From 1697 to 1720 the higher Britannia standard, 958 parts per 1,000, was compulsory, and a figure of Britannia replaced the lion passant; it remains an optional standard today.

For reading the date letter and town mark, see English silver date letters.

Outside Britain the purity number is often the same, 800 or 925, and it is the national symbol beside it that tells you the country and the period.

• Ireland: the Hibernia figure, introduced in 1730 and still in use (Wikipedia).
• France: the Minerva head, used for solid silver since 1838, in two standards, 950 and 800 parts per 1,000; export pieces carry a Mercury head (Wikipedia).
• Germany: a crescent moon and a crown beside a number such as 800, from 1 January 1888; there is no compulsory date letter (antiquesilverhallmarks.com). Before 1888, town marks and a loth number (16 loth = pure silver) were used. See 800 and 830 continental silver and the crown mark on silver.
• Austria-Hungary, 1867 to 1933: a Diana head, with the frame shape showing the fineness from 800 to 900 (Wikipedia).
• Russia: the number 84 is in zolotniks, not parts per 1,000; see 84 silver.
• Japan: a national mint marking system from 1929 (Wikipedia).
• United States: no national assay or date system; Baltimore ran an assay office from 1814 to 1830, and STERLING or 925 became the norm after sterling was adopted as the standard in 1868. Makers such as Tiffany and Gorham ran their own date codes (Wikipedia). See Tiffany and Gorham.
• International Convention mark: a Common Control Mark with the sponsor's mark, a millesimal number and an assay office mark; recognised silver standards are 800, 925 and 999 (London Assay Office).

Purity marks do not make silver valuable on their own; a 925 on a plain modern spoon and a 925 on a Georgian tureen say the same thing about the metal. What moves prices is the maker's mark of a sought-after silversmith on a genuine, well-preserved piece of the right period.

Paul de Lamerie, the London silversmith, shows the scale. MutualArt lists a George II silver basket by de Lamerie, London 1739, sold at Sotheby's Paris in 2025 for $167,723 as his top auction result in its records, and Sotheby's estimated a de Lamerie cup and cover, London 1740, at $30,000 to $50,000 in its 2020 Star Collection sale. By contrast, a lone STERLING stamp with no maker's name gives you metal content and little else, and plate marks such as EPNS or A1 point to far lower values.

• The London Assay Office trace service. Email a clear photograph of the marks and a description of the object; its Library helps with historic hallmarks struck before 1975. It warns that data protection rules limit what it can share about 20th and 21st century makers.
• Silver Makers' Marks (silvermakersmarks.co.uk). A British and Irish makers' marks database with a quick makers' search, date-letter tables and a section on Scottish provincial marks, which the site itself says is far from complete.
• The pages on this site. Start with the country symbol above, then the maker pages such as Georg Jensen or silver plate company marks.
• A photo in the app. AntiqLens reads the row of marks and the form of the piece and suggests a maker, country and period, which you can check against the lists above.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed below. Prices are copied from the named auction report or guide with its date; where a figure could not be confirmed we say so rather than estimate. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.

A piece stamped only with the word SILVER is making a claim that US rules treat with suspicion, because the word on its own does not say how much silver is in the metal. The Federal Trade Commission's Jewelry Guides (16 CFR 23.5) list the unqualified word silver as a potentially misleading marking unless an equally conspicuous, accurate fineness number immediately precedes it, as in 750 silver. The same section reserves solid silver, sterling silver, sterling and ster. for metal of at least 925 parts per 1,000, and coin or coin silver for at least 900 parts per 1,000. A plated item may be called silver only if the description makes clear it is a coating, and the Guides note that under the National Stamping Act a silver-plated article may not be stamped sterling or coin.

In practice that gives you three readings:

• A number before the word (800 silver, 925 silver): the number is the fineness claim; see the numbers section above.
• SILVER with plating words (silver plate, silverplate, silver on copper, EPNS): a thin coating over base metal.
• SILVER on its own, especially on modern jewellery: treat it as unproven. It may be plated, low-grade or genuine; only a test will say.

German silver and nickel silver remain base-metal alloys with no silver in them, whatever the stamp says.

Yes, and legitimately so in several cases.

• Light British pieces. Under Schedule 1 of the Hallmarking Act 1973, a silver article weighing less than 7.78 grams is exempt from hallmarking.
• Older British pieces. The same schedule exempts gold or silver articles made before 1950, provided they meet the minimum standard and have not been improperly altered since the start of 1950.
• American silver. The United States has no official hallmarking scheme (Wikipedia, Hallmark); marks are applied by makers, and a responsibility mark is required only when a fineness is claimed.
• Worn marks. Years of polishing can wear shallow marks until they are hard to read, especially on handles.

An unmarked piece therefore needs testing rather than trust. XRF testing, the method assay offices use, measures silver content without marking the piece.

Silver marked sterling is worth at least its silver content, and more if the maker or design is sought after. On 24 September 2026 Kitco quoted silver at $63.49 per troy ounce, or $2.04 per gram. Sterling is 925 parts silver per 1,000, so each gram of sterling contains about $1.89 of silver at that price, and 100 grams of solid sterling flatware contains about $189 of silver. A scrap buyer's offer is a share of that figure, so ask what percentage of the silver value they pay before you sell.

Weigh only the solid sterling parts, and leave out plated pieces, which have no meaningful silver content. For named makers and period pieces, the object can be worth far more than the metal; check the maker's mark before selling anything for scrap.