What does an anchor mark on silver mean?

An anchor is the assay office mark of Birmingham, which has been testing silver since 1773. It says where the piece was assayed, not where it was made or by whom, and it is what tells you to use Birmingham's date letter table rather than another office's.

What does a crown on silver mean?

On British silver a crown was the assay office mark of Sheffield, used until 1975, when Sheffield adopted a rose instead. A crown alongside a lion passant and a date letter therefore points to Sheffield and to a date before 1975. A crown can also appear as part of other marks, so read it in the context of the whole set.

Which UK assay offices are still open?

Four: London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh. Several others operated historically and have closed, including Chester, Exeter, Newcastle, York, Dublin for the Republic of Ireland's own system, and Glasgow, which closed in 1964. A mark from a closed office is a useful date bracket in itself.

Assay office marks — leopard, anchor, crown, rose

The assay office mark answers one question — which office tested this? — and answering it is what makes the rest of the hallmark readable. Every office kept its own date letter cycle until 1975, so the office mark is the key to the table, and the table is the key to the year.

It says nothing about where the object was made. A Sheffield firm could send work to London for assay, and often did.

The four offices open today

Town	Mark
London	A leopard’s head
Birmingham	An anchor
Sheffield	A rose, and a crown before 1975
Edinburgh	A castle

Birmingham and Sheffield were both established in 1773, after a campaign led by the Birmingham manufacturer Matthew Boulton, who was tired of sending plate to Chester. The story that the two towns settled their marks — an anchor and a crown — over a drink at the Crown and Anchor tavern in London is told by the offices themselves and is at least a good story.

Sheffield’s crown became a rose in 1975. That single change is a useful bracket: a genuine Sheffield crown means before 1975.

The London leopard, and the crown it lost

London’s leopard’s head goes back to the earliest days of the system. It wore a crown until the early 1820s and has been bare-headed since, which splits London silver into two large eras at a glance.

The exact year is disputed. The London Assay Office’s own history says 1822; a great many published tables say 1821. We give the range rather than pick, for the reason set out in what the lion passant means: a confident year repeated across enough pages starts to look like a fact.

Offices that closed

A mark from an office that no longer exists is a gift, because closure gives you a hard latest date. Chester, Exeter, Newcastle and York all operated and all closed; Glasgow, whose mark included a tree, a fish and a bell, closed in 1964.

If your piece carries one of these, two things follow. It cannot be later than the closure, and the office’s own tables are the only ones that will read its date letter — which means a reference book or a library rather than a quick search.

Import marks read differently

Silver assayed in Britain for import after 1904 carries the office mark in an oval surround, with the standard given as a decimal figure — .925 rather than a lion. If your set looks like a hallmark but the shapes are all wrong, check whether you are holding an import mark before concluding it is a fake.

Foreign marks are a different system entirely

A great deal of what arrives labelled “silver” is Continental, and Continental marking is not one system but many. Some countries mark by millesimal number, some by a national symbol, some by both, some hardly at all. A British table will not read them, and matching a foreign mark to a British one because the shapes are similar is how objects get badly misattributed.

The honest position on an unfamiliar mark is that it is unidentified until it is identified, which is not a satisfying answer and is better than a wrong one.