UK Hallmarks from 1999

Q: What is a Hallmark?
Q: Why is it Important?
Q: What Precious Metals Does it Cover?
Q: What's New?
Q: What are the Standards?
Q: What is a Convention Mark?
Summary Table
What Else?

Q: Why is it Important?
Hallmarks are important because they guarantee to the consumer that the article has been independently tested to be of the stated minimum purity. They also inform and protect vendors from unintentionally mis-describing an article. The presence of a hallmark avoids the necessity of re-testing a piece whenever it is valued or offered for resale.

Q: What Precious Metals Does it Cover?
Hallmarks have traditionally covered gold and silver, but in 1976, platinum was included as a hallmarkable precious metal.

Q: What's New?
The quality mark is now to be shown millessimally, i.e. in parts per thousand. The old "9, 18" etc. are no longer used, except informally and optionally.
The date letter which used to be mandatory, is now optional.
The exemption date for antiquity is now 1920 instead of 1900.
Quality symbols, such as the lion, Britannia and orb are now optional.
The Common Control Mark is still optional.
The newly introduced standards for gold are 990 and 999 parts per 1000, for silver 800 and 999, and for platinum 850, 900 and 999 parts per 1000.

Q: What are the Standards?
For gold, the new standards are now 375, 585, 750, 990, 916, and 999 parts per 1000.
For silver, the new standards are now 800, 925, 958, and 999 parts per 1000.
For platinum, the new standards are now 850, 900, 950, and 999 parts per 1000

Q: What is a Convention Mark?
Under the Hallmarking Act, other European Economic Area Hallmarks and standards of fineness are now permitted. The International Hallmarking Convention agrees that participating countries grant equal and mutual recognition and acceptance to their hallmarked goods. Under the convention, no negative tolerances are permitted, and the assay is carried out by an independent laboratory. By "no negative tolerances", it means that 18 carat gold, for example, which equates to 75% or 750 parts per thousand, the minimum standard must be 750 parts, 749 would fail.

Summary Table
This table will show all the current standards at a glance:-

Metal	New Standard	Previous
Gold	375	9 carat
Gold	585	14 carat
Gold	750	18 carat
Gold	916	22 carat
Gold	990
Gold	999
Silver	800
Silver	925	Sterling
Silver	958	Britannia
Silver	999
Platinum	850
Platinum	900
Platinum	950	950
Platinum	999

What Else?
There is also a proposed European Directive on hallmarking.
This aims to harmonise hallmarking within the European Union. As it stands, it proposes to allow self certification under quality assurance schemes without independent third party testing. This is being disputed by a number of members as it would lead to a dilution of standards. There are also various other amendments mooted under the proposed directive.