Free guides to British antiques
Know what you're holding.
Paul Storr, hot water jug, London 1807. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, open access.
Plain guides to the marks, makers and prices behind the things people inherit, find and collect. Written from auction records, and free to read.
A silver hallmark has four parts. Read them in this order:
I have a piece. Where do I start?
Read a mark
Silver carries small stamped marks. Pick the ones you can see and the tool tells you the metal, the town, the year and the maker.
Look up what I have
Each category has its own guides and recent sale prices.
See what sold
Recent auction prices, with the estimate the saleroom gave beforehand. The evidence every guide is written from.
Want a valuer to look at it?
Send photographs of one item and a specialist at Gorringe's will tell you what it is and what it should make. Free, and no obligation to sell.
Guides to begin with
All guides
Silver · 9 min readHow to read British silver hallmarksFour punches, read left to right, tell you what the metal is, where it was tested, when, and who made it. This guide walks through each one with real pieces.
Silver · 6 min readSolid silver or plate? Six tests you can do at the kitchen tableMost inherited "silver" is plated. Six ways to tell if silver is real before you weigh it, in the order a specialist would try them, and what each one proves.
Books · 8 min readFirst edition or first printing? The difference that moves the price"First edition" on a copyright page does not mean what sellers think. What the trade means by edition, impression, issue and state, and where the money goes.
Probate · 8 min readProbate valuation of house contents: what HMRC expectsThe executor has to put a figure on everything in the house for IHT407. What the figure means, when a professional is needed, and the mistakes that cost money.