What a Scottish hallmark certifies
Scottish silver hallmarks come from two assay offices, and the town mark says which one tested the piece. A three-towered castle is Edinburgh, struck on silver passing assay there since 1485. Glasgow’s mark is the busier of the two, a tree with a bell, a bird and a fish taken from the device of the city, which its goldsmiths were using by 1681 and the assay office struck from 1819 until it closed in 1964. The mark that guarantees the metal stands beside the town mark. In Edinburgh that was a deacon’s mark to 1681, an assay master’s initials from 1681 to 1759, then a thistle, and a lion rampant from 1975. It was never the English lion passant.
| Mark | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Three-towered castle | Assayed at Edinburgh, 1485 to date |
| Tree with a bell, a bird and a fish | Glasgow. The device runs from 1681, the assay office from 1819 to 1964 |
| Lion rampant | Sterling, 925 parts silver in a thousand. Glasgow from 1819, Edinburgh from 1975 |
| Thistle | Sterling. Edinburgh 1759 to 1974, Glasgow 1914 to 1964 |
| Deacon’s mark | Initials of the head of the craft, Edinburgh to 1681 |
| Assay master’s mark | The assay master’s initials, Edinburgh 1681 to 1759 |
| Date letter | The assay year. Edinburgh from 1681, on a cycle each office set for itself |
| Sovereign’s head | Duty paid, 1784 to 1890 |
| Saint Andrew’s cross | Edinburgh’s mark on imported work, 1904 to 1998 |
| Maker’s mark | Who sent it for assay |
Edinburgh silver hallmarks: the castle and the 1457 Act
The Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh was established by the 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament, which the office calls the oldest surviving Act of Parliament to deal with hallmarking. The castle began to be struck on pieces passing assay in 1485, and James VII granted the Incorporation a royal charter in 1687. It trades now as the Edinburgh Assay Office, the only one of the four British offices outside England.
What moved over those centuries is the mark next to the castle. Until 1681 the castle sat beside the initials of the deacon of the craft, who answered for the metal. From 1681 an assay master’s initials took that place, and the date letter began. The thistle replaced the assay master’s mark in 1759, and the sovereign’s head joined the row for duty between 1784 and 1890. From 1975 the thistle gave way to a lion rampant. Since 1999 the Hallmarking Act 1973 has made the number compulsory and the lion optional: it lists a lion passant as the optional pictorial mark for 925 silver, and a lion rampant on an article struck at Edinburgh. A modern Edinburgh row with 925, a castle and no lion is complete.
Glasgow silver hallmarks, 1819 to 1964
Glasgow’s office opened in 1819 and struck its last mark in 1964, and what survives of its records is searchable in the Edinburgh Assay Office’s online archive. Its standard mark was the lion rampant from the first year, and from 1914 a thistle was struck beside it. Before 1819 a Glasgow goldsmith either sent work to Edinburgh or marked it himself, which is why the trade catalogues a Glasgow tankard of the 1750s as Scottish provincial and an 1850 one as Glasgow proper.
The closure fixes a ceiling on the mark. No piece carries a Glasgow town mark struck after 1964, and the office was gone eleven years before the surviving offices took up a single national date letter in 1975, so a tree in the row belongs to work marked in 1964 or earlier. The rare marks guide covers the closed offices and what their marks do to a price.
Provincial silver carries no office mark at all
Beyond the two cities a silversmith struck his own punch and added the name of his town or a device from its arms. TAIN, INVERNESS, ELLON, BANFF, CUPAR and DUNDEE are among the name punches. None is an official hallmark and no assay office stood behind them, which is the first thing to settle about a Scottish piece with no castle and no thistle. Aberdeen, Inverness, Tain and Wick are the centres collectors follow, and a scarce town lifts an ordinary object well above the price of its weight in silver.
What a castle and a thistle get mistaken for
A castle is not Edinburgh by itself. Exeter marked silver with a triple-towered castle of its own from 1701 to 1883, and Newcastle used three castles to 1884. The lion separates them from Edinburgh: an English row carries the lion passant, walking with one forepaw raised, and Scottish silver was never marked with that lion. A lion rearing on its hind legs is the rampant lion of Scotland, and the lion passant entry sets the two animals side by side.
Two other things get read as marks when they are not. A thistle cast or engraved as ornament on a quaich or a brooch is decoration; a hallmark is punched into the metal, enclosed in a shield, in a row with the rest. A Saint Andrew’s cross in the row is not a national emblem either, it is the punch Edinburgh struck on imported work from 1904 to 1998, and 925 in an oval beside it means the fineness was marked by number.
Dating a Scottish piece with what is here
The identifier holds no Edinburgh date letter cycle before 1975 and none for Glasgow at any date, so it will not put a year on a Georgian or Victorian Scottish piece. The date letters guide explains how a shield and a letter form fix a cycle, and Bradbury’s printed tables give the Scottish years. Before 1975 the assay year did not run with the calendar year at every office, so one letter can cover parts of two years.
For the maker, the Edinburgh Assay Office has put its registration records online. The free hallmarking archive holds more than 8,000 biographies, most of them Edinburgh goldsmiths, the surviving Glasgow Assay Office records for 1819 to 1964, and short entries on provincial Scottish makers. Search the initials there by town mark and date letter, and a provincial piece by its town name, because the archive files Scottish makers by burgh. Only when the name comes back unremarkable does the scrap calculator have anything to say.
