What the Chester mark certifies
Three wheatsheaves and a sword in the row mean the piece was assayed at the Chester Assay Office, and that it was assayed in 1779 or later. Chester marked silver under statute from 1701 and struck its last hallmark in 1962, when the office closed, but the wheatsheaves and sword cover only the second half of that span. The mark records where the silver was tested; the lion passant beside it records the metal, sterling at 925 parts silver in a thousand.
Four punches make a full Chester row: the lion passant, the town mark, a date letter for the year, and the maker’s mark. A piece marked between 1784 and 1890 carries the sovereign’s head as well, for the duty paid on silver.
| Mark | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Three wheatsheaves and a sword | Assayed at Chester, 1779 to 1962 |
| Three demi-lions joined to three wheatsheaves | Assayed at Chester, 1701 to 1779 |
| Lion passant | Sterling, 925 parts silver in a thousand |
| Date letter | The assay year |
| Maker’s mark | Who sent it for assay |
| Sovereign’s head, 1784 to 1890 | Duty paid |
The town mark, and the change in 1779
Chester’s mark is taken from the arms of the city, the wheatsheaves standing for the earldom of Chester. Which version you are looking at dates the piece on its own, before you reach the date letter.
From 1701 the office struck the city arms impaling those of the earldom: three demi-lions of England dimidiated, or joined down the middle, with three wheatsheaves. In 1779 it went back to the older design of an upright sword with three wheatsheaves, and kept that until the office closed in 1962.
So a Chester row with lions in the town mark is Georgian, struck before 1779. A row with the sword is 1779 or later, which covers most surviving Chester silver.
Why so much Chester silver was made elsewhere
Chester assayed a great deal of silver it did not make. It was the nearest office to Birmingham and to the workshops of the north-west, so before Birmingham opened in 1773 a Birmingham maker sent work to Chester, and many carried on doing so afterwards. The office is known for small goods: buckles, buttons, spoons, watch cases, and the jewellery and smallwork of the region.
That history is why the initials beside a Chester town mark are as likely to be a Birmingham or Liverpool maker as a Chester one. Read the office as the place the piece was tested, never as the place it was made.
Chester date letters and the 1962 closure
Chester struck a date letter every year, in cycles of the alphabet, each cycle in a new typeface and shield. A letter alone dates nothing: the shape of the punch fixes the cycle and the letter fixes the year within it. Because the office closed in 1962, no Chester piece carries a mark later than that year, and Chester never used the single national date letter that the other offices adopted from 1975. A Chester town mark beside a 1975 or later letter is a mismatch, and the town mark is the part that has been read wrong.
One warning about dating a Chester letter: the year the office worked to was not the calendar year. The letter changed on 5 July until 1839, on 5 August to 1890, and on 1 July after that, so a letter spans parts of two calendar years and a piece is dated to both.
The Chester cycles are not yet in the identifier, which covers London, Birmingham and Sheffield. Until they are, the date letters guide explains how to read a shield, and a printed table such as Bradbury’s gives the Chester years.
Town marks compared
The quickest way to place an English piece is the town mark.
| Town mark | Office |
|---|---|
| Leopard’s head | London |
| Anchor | Birmingham |
| Crown, or a rose from 1975 | Sheffield |
| Three wheatsheaves and a sword | Chester, 1779 to 1962 |
Chester and Birmingham are the pair most easily confused, because so much of what Chester assayed was made forty miles away.
What Chester silver is worth
Most Chester silver is small goods, and these sell by weight with a little for the object. A plain Chester spoon, buckle or napkin ring is an illustrative few pounds to low tens of pounds, close to the melt value that the scrap calculator works out from the grams. The exceptions follow the maker and the object, not the office: a card case by a named Birmingham maker sent to Chester for assay is worth what that maker’s work is worth. A Nathaniel Mills castle-top runs from £150 to £3,000 on the view alone, and the wheatsheaves in its row change none of that. The scarcity of an office that closed in 1962 adds interest for collectors of marks, but little to the price of an ordinary piece.
Before you value a Chester piece
Read the town mark first and settle whether it is the sword or the lions, because that alone puts the piece either side of 1779. Then take the maker’s initials, because on Chester silver they are the mark that carries the money. The hallmarks guide works through a full row in order, and the price records give illustrative ranges for comparable pieces.
