Guides

How to read what is stamped on the bottom

A hallmark, a backstamp or a country name will often date a piece more precisely than anything else about it. These are the marks worth learning, and every date below carries the authority it came from.

Start here · 10 min How to read a British silver hallmark The four marks on British silver, what each one does, and the order to read them in — with the assay offices' own tables behind every date given here.
Pottery · 9 min Pottery marks: how to date a backstamp The words, the method and the shape of a pottery mark each date it. What Ltd, Trade Mark, Bone China and a diamond mark tell you, and what they cannot. Silver · 8 min Assay office marks — leopard, anchor, crown, rose Which town tested a piece of silver, and what to do when the mark belongs to an office that closed. The four British assay offices and the ones that are not. Pottery · 8 min England or Made in England — what each one dates A country mark is a customs requirement, not decoration. What England, Made in England, Nippon, Occupied Japan and West Germany each date a piece to. Silver · 9 min What EPNS means on silver, and what it is worth EPNS stands for electroplated nickel silver and contains no sterling at all. What the mark means, how to tell it from solid silver, and what it is worth. Silver · 8 min Silver date letters: how to read the year A date letter gives the exact year a piece was assayed — but only against the right office's table. How the cycles work and the mistake almost everyone makes. Valuing · 8 min Hammer price, realised price and buyer's premium An auction lot produces three different numbers and only one is evidence of value. What price realised means, what the hammer price is, and which to compare. Silver · 8 min What the lion passant on silver actually means The walking lion on English silver means sterling — .925 — and nothing else. What it does not tell you, which way it faces, and what Britannia means instead.
Why every date here has a link after it. Most of what is written about antique marks online is repeated from other pages that repeated it from somewhere else, and a wrong year travels as easily as a right one. Where the authorities disagree — and on one date below they do — this says so rather than picking the tidier answer.