What a French silver mark certifies
A French silver mark records a test by the state, and the mark to find is a head: the helmeted profile of Minerva, punched in a shaped surround with a small figure beside it. A 1 makes the piece first standard, a 2 makes it second standard at 800 parts silver in a thousand. No town mark goes with it and no date letter, so a French row gives you the metal and whoever answered for it, and leaves the year to the object itself.
| Mark | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Minerva head with a 1 | First standard. 950 parts in a thousand to 1973, 925 since |
| Minerva head with a 2 | Second standard, 800 parts in a thousand |
| Minerva head with no surround | Small new work, and second-hand French silver. 800 minimum |
| Swan in an oval | Second-hand silver of foreign or uncertain origin |
| Lozenge | The maker’s own punch, struck in France |
| Oval | An importer’s punch, not a maker’s |
| Boar’s head or crab | Small work, 1838 scheme |
The state has marked French silver since 1797
France runs no assay office in the British sense. The punches belong to the state, and French customs publishes the chronology behind them: goldsmiths’ communities marked silver with their own punches from 1275, Colbert added charge and discharge punches for the tax in 1674, and the Revolution swept both away, so that by April 1791 nobody tested French silver at all. The law of 19 brumaire an VI, 9 November 1797, put state punches in their place, and customs calls that law the basis of the Garantie today.
Who strikes them has widened since. Customs sets out the rules of marque: the Monnaie de Paris alone makes the punches, ten bureaux de garantie test and mark, and since 1994 habilitated manufacturers and four accredited laboratories strike the garantie punch themselves. The punch is the state’s; the hand holding it need not be.
Three standards, and the second is below sterling
French law works to three finenesses: 999, 925 and 800 parts in a thousand. The DGCCRF gives those three as the only ones that may be labelled as silver jewellery, and customs puts 800 as the floor for calling anything argent at all. An amphora marks the 999.
The second standard is what catches a British seller. Much nineteenth-century French tableware was worked at 800, below sterling, and the gap shows in the melt figure rather than in the look of the piece. A hundred grams of it holds 80 grams of fine silver against 92.5 for sterling, and the silver price page prices both by the gram.
The first standard moved. It was 950 parts in a thousand from 1838 and 925 from 1973, so a Minerva with a 1 on anything made before 1973 holds more silver than sterling, not less. The French trade records the change at 1973 and this page has not found the statute that made it, so treat the year as the trade’s figure rather than as law.
Small work took a boar’s head or a crab
Under the 1838 scheme a large piece took the Minerva and a small one took an animal, a boar’s head or a crab. The reference works divide the two differently, some by the office that struck them and some by the standard they guaranteed, so this page will not pick between them. Both were replaced later by a Minerva head with no surround, at 800 minimum. Either animal puts a piece in the older scheme without putting a year on it.
Weight decides whether anything is struck. Since 20 November 2001 a French silver article under 30 grams needs no garantie punch, though it has to be at a legal standard and carry the maker’s mark. Schedule 1 to the Hallmarking Act sets the British line at 7.78 grams, as the 925 entry explains, so the French gate is nearly four times as wide.
The shape of the punch names who answered for it
The same rules draw the maker’s punch as a lozenge and an importer’s as an oval, and that outline decides what you are holding: a lozenge means a French workshop put its name to the metal, an oval means an importer did and the piece was made elsewhere. Inside the lozenge sit an initial and a personal device, the différent, doing the work a British sponsor’s mark does. The makers’ marks guide explains why that signature names whoever submitted a piece rather than the hand that raised it.
What a French row gets read as
A head in a shield is not always Minerva. British silver carries the sovereign’s head for duty paid between 1784 and 1890, and that head stands beside a lion passant and a town mark, which a French row never has. The rare marks guide covers the duty head.
Métal argenté is the second, and it is electroplate. French rules allow the term only where the covering metal assays 500 or better and the coating reaches 10 microns, and a thinner gold skin is sold as doré. Vermeil is solid silver underneath, gilded at 750 or better to 5 microns, and takes a V in a lozenge. The EPNS entry gives what a plated piece is worth: the object, and nothing for the metal.
The swan is the third, and it is read as a French mark. It is a French punch recording the opposite: it goes on second-hand silver of foreign or uncertain origin, guaranteeing 800 minimum. So a swan says the piece was marked on resale in France rather than made there, and leaves where it came from open.
The order of work on a French piece
Reverse the British habit. With no date letter to look up and no office to place, read the figure in the Minerva first, then weigh the piece: a 2 is 800, a 1 is 925 on modern work and 950 on anything before 1973. That floor is close to the whole answer on most French tableware. Only then is the lozenge worth chasing, because a name is the one thing that lifts a French piece above its weight.
