What 925 means
925 is a fineness: 925 parts pure silver in every thousand, with copper making up the rest. That is the sterling standard, and a piece marked 925 by a British assay office is sterling silver. In weight it means 100 grams of the metal holds 92.5 grams of fine silver, which is the figure a refiner pays on.
Whether the number is worth anything as evidence depends on what sits beside it. In a row with an assay office mark, it records a test somebody is accountable for under the Act. Alone on the back of a chain, nobody has tested anything and the figure is the manufacturer’s own word.
Is 925 silver real silver?
Yes. The metal is silver all the way through rather than a skin over something cheaper, and 925 is the standard English sterling has been held to since 1544. What the number cannot tell you is whether anyone independent checked it, and that is settled by the rest of the marks in the row.
When 925 is a hallmark and when it is a stamp
A British hallmark is a row of punches, not a number. Two of them are compulsory: the assay office mark, and the figures for the standard. The sponsor’s mark, the initials of whoever submitted the piece for assay, sits alongside.
| Office | Mark you should find beside the 925 |
|---|---|
| London | Leopard’s head |
| Birmingham | Anchor |
| Sheffield | Rose, since 1975 |
| Edinburgh | Castle |
Four offices are open today, and those are the marks they strike now. Silver imported before 1999 went through the same offices under a different punch, which the next section sets out. A 925 struck alone, with no office mark anywhere on the piece, was not applied by any of them. It is the manufacturer’s own statement of fineness, which is how most silver jewellery made outside Britain is marked, and it is a claim rather than a test.
What changed on 1 January 1999
The number became the compulsory mark that year, and the lion took the demotion.
| Mark | To 1998 | From 1999 |
|---|---|---|
| Assay office mark | Compulsory | Compulsory |
| The figures 925 | The mark for imported silver only | Compulsory on everything |
| Lion passant | Compulsory on English sterling | Struck only if the sponsor asks for it |
| Date letter | Compulsory | Struck only if the sponsor asks for it |
Section 4 of the Hallmarking Act 1973 now strikes the pictorial mark and the date letter “only if a request to that effect is made by the person who submits the article”, and says the absence of either does not make the piece unhallmarked. A sterling teapot marked in 2020 can carry three punches, no lion passant and no year, and be fully hallmarked British silver.
That reshuffle leaves a dating clue worth having. As the Act was passed in 1973, the figures 925 were the standard mark for imported articles and a lion passant was the mark for articles made in the United Kingdom, so a British-made piece that states its fineness in numbers rather than a lion was marked in 1999 or later.
Imported silver is the exception that keeps the clue honest. Until 1999 each office struck a separate punch on foreign work: the sign of Leo at London, an equilateral triangle at Birmingham, the sign of Libra at Sheffield and a Saint Andrew’s cross at Edinburgh. A numbered piece carrying one of those was assayed here before 1999 rather than after it. The same reform retired those punches, so imported work now takes the same town mark as British work.
The same reform widened what the offices will mark. Schedule 2 now lists four silver standards.
| Figures struck | Fineness | Optional pictorial mark |
|---|---|---|
| 800 | 800 parts in a thousand | None |
| 925 | 925 parts | Lion passant, or a lion rampant at Edinburgh |
| 958 | 958 parts, the Britannia standard | Britannia or a lion passant |
| 999 | 999 parts | Britannia or a lion passant |
An 800 piece hallmarked in Britain therefore carries no animal at all, because the Act gives that standard no pictorial mark to strike.
Why a great deal of real sterling carries no hallmark
Schedule 1 exempts an article containing silver of the minimum fineness whose total metal weight comes to less than 7.78 grams, subject to conditions about any other precious metal in it. That threshold is a quarter of a troy ounce, and it covers a great deal of what people own: a fine chain, small earrings, a thin band. Such a piece can be sterling, legal and marked with nothing but the maker’s 925.
Imported silver is the other half of the answer. A dealer selling an article as silver in Britain needs a British hallmark on it, or one of the convention hallmarks the Act recognises from abroad, so foreign work is sent to a British office before it goes on sale. Jewellery bought overseas or online arrives with neither, and carries the bare number.
What 925 silver is worth
Weight, multiplied by fineness, multiplied by the silver price of the day, less a refiner’s margin. That is the floor, and for plain sterling it is most of the answer.
| Mark | Fine silver in 100 grams |
|---|---|
| 800 | 80 grams |
| 925 | 92.5 grams |
| 958 | 95.8 grams |
| 999 | 99.9 grams |
The scrap calculator carries all four standards and the current LBMA silver price. Run a light chain through it before you hope: 6 grams of sterling holds 5.55 grams of fine silver, and the calculator prices that at the day’s figure rather than at a number printed here.
The pieces that beat their weight do it on the name. A Georg Jensen ‘Acorn’ canteen of 48 pieces made £2,100 at hammer, an illustrative figure from the price records, and a Jensen mark reads 925S or 830S beside London import marks rather than a British office mark alone. The maker’s page sets out which marks carry the premium. The scrap or auction guide works out which route a given piece belongs in.
Numbers and words that are not 925
800, 830 and 835. Continental standards, common on German, Danish and Italian silver. Real silver, less of it, read by the French and German entries.
958. The Britannia standard, higher than sterling, struck with the figure of Britannia.
Sterling, or STG. The Act treats a description of an article as “sterling” as an indication that it is silver of 925, so the word carries the same meaning as the number without being a hallmark in itself.
EPNS, EP or A1 anywhere in the row. Electroplate, whatever else is stamped on the piece. The EPNS entry has the rest of the plate marks.
Weigh the piece first, then read the row: the grams settle the floor and the marks settle whether anything sits above it. The hallmarks guide takes a full row in order.
