Silver Gifts

Silver, like all precious metals sold in the UK, must be hallmarked, showing it has been tested by an independent Assay Office. These are at London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh, with the Birmingham Assay Office being the largest in the world.
Hallmarking guarantees that the metal is of the fineness stated and gives protection for the consumer.
The legal requirement applies to all precious metal items sold in the UK, regardless of the country of manufacture. The only exemptions are items which fall beneath the specified weight threshold which is 7.78 grams for silver.
Hallmarking has been around for centuries - with silver being the first metal to be hallmarked, in 1300. The marks help to tell the history of items such as silver tableware, giving details of the date and place of hallmarking. Recent changes to the Hallmarking Act mean that date letters are now optional and also optional are the widely-recognised pictorial fineness marks of a lion for silver, crown for gold, orb for platinum.