What the leopard’s head certifies
A leopard’s head, seen face on, is the town mark of the London Assay Office. It says the piece was tested at Goldsmiths’ Hall, which is where the word hallmark comes from. Beside it the lion passant certifies the metal as sterling, 925 parts silver in a thousand, and a date letter gives the year.
A statute of 1300 required silver worked in England to be tested and struck with a leopard’s head, and the office has marked silver ever since. Pieces from 1784 to 1890 carry the sovereign’s head as well, for the duty paid on plate. The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office still strikes the leopard today.
The crown came off in 1821
Two London marks changed together at the end of the 1821 assay year. The leopard’s head wore a crown until then and has been bare since 1822. The lion passant faced out of the punch at the viewer, guardant in the heraldic word, and from 1822 turned to profile.
That pairing dates a piece before you reach the date letter. A crowned leopard beside a lion looking at you is 1821 or earlier. A bare leopard beside a lion in profile is 1822 or later. The lion passant entry covers the standard mark on its own.
Britannia, 1697 to 1720
English silver had to meet the higher Britannia standard of 958 between 1697 and 1720, to stop coin being melted for plate. London struck the seated figure of Britannia and a lion’s head erased in place of the lion passant and the leopard’s head, so a London piece from those years carries no leopard at all. From 1720 sterling returned and Britannia became a standard a maker chose.
Date letters and the 19 May change
London has struck a date letter since 1478, in cycles of twenty letters, A to U with no J. Until 1974 the letter changed on 19 May, St Dunstan’s day, after the goldsmiths’ patron saint, so a London date letter spans the back half of one calendar year and the front half of the next. From 1975 every office changed on 1 January and used the same letter as the others.
| Years | Letters |
|---|---|
| 1876 to 1895 | Roman capitals |
| 1896 to 1915 | Roman lower-case |
| 1916 to 1935 | Black letter lower-case |
| 1936 to 1955 | Roman capitals |
| 1956 to 1974 | Roman lower-case, a to t |
| 1975 to 1999 | Capitals, all offices |
| 2000 to date | Lower-case, all offices |
Earlier cycles run back to 1478 on the same pattern, with the typeface and the shield changing at each turn. The identifier holds the tables, and the date letters guide explains how to read the shield.
The makers that move a London price
London held the trade’s best workshops, and the maker’s mark is where most of the money sits on a London piece.
| Mark | Maker | Registered | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| PS | Paul Storr | 1793 | Regency plate at the top of the market |
| HB | Hester Bateman | 1761 | Georgian domestic silver, the best-known woman silversmith |
| OR | Omar Ramsden | 1918, working alone from then | Arts and Crafts pieces, most of them inscribed |
| WC | William Comyns | 1859 | Late Victorian and Edwardian smallwork |
Paul Storr and Hester Bateman have pages of their own. Garrard, as crown jewellers, is the other London name that changes an estimate on sight.
What London silver makes at auction
| Object | Marks | Hammer |
|---|---|---|
| Omar Ramsden footed bowl, London 1928 | Lion, leopard, date letter, OR | £2,600 |
| Silver tankard, London 1772, later chased | Lion, crowned leopard, date letter | £320 |
| Hester Bateman sugar tongs, London 1786 | Lion, crowned leopard, date letter, HB, duty mark | £110 |
All three are illustrative figures from the price records. The tankard shows what later decoration does to a good Georgian form: the chasing was cut into it long after it was made, and it sold at the bottom of a £300 to £500 estimate. Weight sets the floor under a plain piece, and the scrap calculator works that floor out from the grams.
Reading the rest of the row
The leopard gives you the office, the lion the metal, the date letter the year and the maker’s mark the name. An anchor in place of the leopard sends you to Birmingham. The hallmarks guide works through all four marks on real pieces.
