Hallmarks – Served up on a silver platter

Silver has been historically associated with wealth and prestige and once upon a time grand house always had a fine collection of silver – dinnerware, candlesticks, ornaments, strange objects obsolete in today’s world such as asparagus tongs were once commonplace, even in our grandparent’s time most houses would have had some silver which would be kept for ‘special’ occasions and brought out to polish up for these events

However, in more recent times, especially to the younger generations, silver has been considered old fashioned and out of date, with most modern homes lacking the space to house these dust - collecting objects, the metal itself was the poor cousin of gold and these items seemed only of value to the collectors of rare and fine pieces.

But with the value of precious metals continually increasing, so has the interest in silver and this fine metal is making a comeback at auction. Bidding has been strong in recent sales, especially for Irish Georgian silver pieces - making well in excess of their estimates.

Silver can be identified, dated and valued from its hallmarks; it can also be used to separate it from silver plate which can look similar to the untrained eye but is of little value. Hallmarks date back to the medieval period and are the oldest form of consumer protection – guaranteeing the purity of the precious metal and allowing us to date the items and in some cases identify the maker.

Edward I (1272 – 1307) passed a law requiring silver to be of a sterling standard which equates to 925 parts per thousand or .925, this started the British Assay system still in place today. Assay offices are responsible for stamping the items and checking the purity of the metal, the British and Irish assay system is known to be by far the most superior in the world.

Most British and Irish silver items carry a number of stamps indicating not only the purity but the place of assay, the date and the maker. Each assay office is denoted its own symbols, for example, the Dublin assay office uses Hibernia and London is denoted by a Leopard’s head, the date is represented by a letter within a cartouche, the maker’s mark will usually be an initial and sometimes duty marks such as Victoria or George’s head may be present.

In the above example the crown denotes the piece was made in Ireland, the male head is for George IV, as Dublin was under British rule at the time, the cartouche of ‘Hibernia’ denotes the item was stamped in the Dublin assay office, the letter Z is for the year 1820 and SB is the maker’s mark for Stephen Bergin

The above marks are found on a piece of provincial Irish silver which bears the maker’s mark CT for Carden Terry and is stamped Sterling – this is a rare piece of George III Cork silver, c. 1787, at this time it was too dangerous to bring the precious metal for assaying to the Dublin office either by land or by sea, so by arrangement the silversmith was permitted to stamp Sterling on the piece himself.

Now go and find that piece of silver collecting dust at the back of your cupboard and check for hallmarks, the vendor of the Carden Terry sauce boat was not aware of its rarity and value!