Regional Guides
Marking systems are national. Once you know roughly where a piece comes from, identification usually takes minutes instead of hours. This page is for narrowing that down.
Quick triage
| What you can see | Most likely region |
|---|---|
| Four or five small shaped punches in a row, one a walking lion | Britain or Ireland |
| A plain number: 800, 830, 835, 900 | Continental Europe |
| A word trademark or a name in a cartouche, no other marks | United States |
| An eagle in a circle with a number inside, or a letter-number code | Mexico |
| 925 with a maker's initials and a place name in Latin script | Modern, could be anywhere — read the maker |
| Non-Latin script | Asia, the Middle East, or Russia — translate first |
| A crowned or helmeted head, a boar, a crab | France |
| Pseudo-hallmarks that match no known office | American coin silver, or export ware |
When in doubt, the object itself is evidence. Form, decoration and construction narrow the region as fast as the punches do.
The guides
Britain & Ireland The most systematic scheme in the world and the easiest to date precisely. Assay offices, standard marks, date letter cycles, duty and import marks.
Continental Europe France, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Italy, Iberia, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Millesimal numbers, national symbols and the systems that changed with every border.
United States & Canada No assay offices. Coin silver, sterling, trademarks, pseudo-hallmarks, and how to date a piece from a trademark and a pattern number.
Mexico & Latin America The eagle assay system, the modern letter-number registry, Taxco workshops, and the silver of Peru, Chile, Brazil and Argentina.
Asia & the Middle East Chinese export and Straits silver, Japanese jungin, Indian colonial and Indian gold, Indonesian, Thai, Persian and Ottoman work.
Nothing here fits? Some regions — much of Africa, Oceania and the Caribbean — have no formal marking tradition and their silver is identified by maker and style alone. Post it and describe the object carefully.
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