The London assay office had already established its hallmark with the leopard’s head of Edward ‘Longshanks’, the mark it still carries today. After establishing their own assay offices, both Birmingham and Sheffield sought to establish their own hallmarks. The story goes that both party’s representatives from the two assay offices, met in an inn named the Crown and Anchor, and tossed a coin to decided which town would have which symbol. Thus, Sheffield adopted the ‘Crown’ and Birmingham the ‘Anchor’ as their hallmarks.
Ironically, Mathew Boulton was the first to have a batch of sterling silver work put under the hammer by the Birmingham assay office, which did not come up to the necessary sterling silver standard. Boulton undeterred, went on to found the Soho manufactory in Handsworth making sterling silver jewelry, buckles, buttons, toys, plates and silverware. Boulton later achieved international notoriety with the ‘Lunar Society’ and James Watt, building the first commercial steam trains that would drive the Industrial revolution the world over.
By the late 1800's the silver, gold and sterling silver jewelry trade in Birmingham was employing 7500 people. The trade peaked in the 19th Century after the gold rushes in America and Australia, and by 1913 the number of craftspeople working in Birmingham’s gold and sterling silver jewelry trade had risen to 50,000. Attracted by the convenience of the Assay office and surrounding silver and gold bullion dealers, Birmingham’s jewelry quarter burgeoned with skilled sterling silver jewelry craftsmen and women specializing as electroplaters, engravers, chain makers, gemstone setters and silver stampers.
After two successive World Wars, interspersed by economic depression, Birmingham’s sterling silver jewelry manufacturing industry went into decline. At present, most of the city’s businesses have become ‘Service’ related, and although Birmingham’s gold and sterling silver jewelry industry still exists it is but a shadow of its former glory.
In 1999, a new format of English hallmarking on objects of silverware and sterling silver jewelry was initiated consisting of a maker’s mark, the assay office insignia and a .925 symbol. Optional extra marks are the ‘Lion Passant’, the UK sign of sterling silver, and the date letter stamp. The standardizing of the date letter sequence, shared by all four remaining assay offices in Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Sheffield, were introduced to bring the UK gold and sterling silver jewelry system closer in line with other European Union standards. However, the problem remains that many countries throughout the world have different standards and specifications that vary considerably, making it difficult for one country to accept another's hallmarking as equivalent to its own.
With the advent of globalization, ‘Free trade’ and the Internet, finding the problematic solution to the standardization of world gold and sterling silver jewelry hallmarking has become increasingly important. In 1972, the EFTA (European Fair Trade Association) consisting of Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom held the ‘Vienna Convention’ where the first European hallmarking laws for gold and sterling silver jewelry were put into force.
The convention enables specially designated assay offices throughout member countries of the EFTA to apply, after testing, a common control mark to articles of precious metals including gold and sterling silver jewelry in accordance with the Convention. The articles bearing the Convention marks, called CCM: Common Control Marks, are accepted without further testing or marking by the assay office of any destination country that is an EFTA member.
Although this system is not worldwide as yet, Denmark, Ireland, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands have since joined the Convention. And Bahrain, France, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and several Eastern European countries have shown an interest in the Convention, and are preparing for application.
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