Silver Hallmarks: Reading Town, Maker, Assay and Date Letter

Swedish silver often bears four marks in a row, and together they give the year. The town mark shows where the object was stamped, the maker’s mark who made it, the assay mark with three crowns that the fineness has been checked and the date letter when it was made. The letters have followed one another year by year throughout the country since 1759, in cycles where a digit after the letter gives the cycle, and the combination is looked up in a marks table.

Facts

Why silver is hallmarked

Silver has been both splendour and capital. A drinking jug from the Swedish Age of Greatness could be melted down when money was needed, and it was therefore important that the fineness could be trusted. Already in the Middle Ages the guilds required silver to be marked, and the Swedish marks have made silver the most easily dated of all the applied arts.

Date letters were introduced in Stockholm in 1689, and from 1759 the same system applied throughout the country. The diagram further down lets you point to each mark and read what it means. The terms are in the glossary, and the page on silver has the whole history.

Town and maker

The town mark shows where the object was assayed and stamped. Stockholm’s mark is the crowned head of St Eric; other towns have their coats of arms or letters. Since goldsmiths worked in many towns, the town mark can place even simpler silver from the provinces.

The maker’s mark is the silversmith’s initials or name, sometimes a firm’s name. GAB, Guldsmedsaktiebolaget, stamped GAB in a shield or frame, and C. G. Hallberg CGH in a frame. Makers’ marks are listed in marks books, where one can look up who stood behind the initials and when he or she was active. That gives a further check of the date.

The assay mark and the fineness

The assay mark with three crowns shows that the fineness has been checked. It was introduced in 1752, and from 1912 it took the form with three crowns that most people know from 20th-century silver. Swedish silver for a long time held 830 parts per thousand silver; today 925 is also common. On gold the fineness is given in carats or parts per thousand: 750 means 18 carat and 585 14 carat, and the same figures appear on rings and watch cases.

Other countries have systems of their own. English sterling silver has a lion and a date letter, as under Paul Storr’s tureen, and London’s date letters have been used since the 15th century. Danish silver is often marked 925 S or Sterling Denmark, and workshops such as Georg Jensen stamped their name and a design number, as on the Konge cutlery.

The date letter

The date letter is the key to the dating. In the national system A means the year 1759, and the letters then follow one another year by year. When the alphabet ran out a new cycle began, and from the second cycle onwards a digit after the letter indicates which cycle it is. The combination of letter and digit thus gives a single year, which is looked up in a marks table. Each cycle has 24 letters, so A2 means 1783.

On the Rococo coffee pot and the Gustavian candlestick the town mark, maker’s mark, three crowns and date letter sit in a row, so that the object can be dated to the year and placed in a town. The guide to the Gustavian style shows which forms belong to the period.

Style as a check

The form should agree with the marks. Baroque jugs are heavy with chased decoration in high relief, Rococo ones pear-shaped with curved feet, the Gustavian has straight fluting, beading and urn forms, and the workshop silver of the 20th century is hammered or plain. A date letter of the 1770s on a jug in Art Nouveau forms means something is wrong.

Marks may also have been moved from a damaged object to a newer one, or cast from an original; they are then blurred and have small casting pores. An object that has been altered, such as a drinking jug converted into a coffee pot, should have new assay marks on the added parts. Worn marks on an otherwise sharp surface should raise questions.

How to read a row of marks

Look for the marks on the underside, at the mouth, on the foot or on the back of the handle on cutlery. Read them all: town, maker, assay and year, and any fineness marks, firm names and model numbers. Worn marks can be hard to read, and then a magnifying glass and raking light help. Compare the shape of the letter and the look of the frame with the table, since the same letter was used in several cycles.

The same system applies to jewellery, see the page on jewellery, and to watch cases in gold and silver; the guide to dating a wristwatch deals with them. Assay marking is now voluntary in Sweden, but many silversmiths still stamp with a maker’s mark and date letter. If official marks are missing and it says NS or EPNS, the object is probably silver-plated; see the guide to silver, nickel silver and silver plate, and compare with porcelain marks.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Which of the marks on a Swedish silver object indicates the year of manufacture?