About Hallmarking

At Best Mood Rings all our Sterling Silver mood jewelry is fully hallmarked by the British Assay Office.  

What is a HALLMARK? 

A Hallmark consisted of three COMPULSORY MARKS.  The symbols give the following information:

• who made the article
• what is its guaranteed standard of fineness
• the Assay Office at which the article was tested and marked

This is a Best Mood Ring's Sterling Silver ring. It is the smaller three symbols that have been stamped by the British assay office.

 

These symbols show

The Sponsors Mark

The Standard Mark

The Assay Office Mark

 

Due to importing nowadays, many pieces of jewelry are only stamped '925' by the manufacturer. However, it may be a lower quality Silver or even silver plated. Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by weight of silver and 7.5% by weight of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925. Legally you do not have to hallmark Silver jewelry under 7.78grams. However, we like to reassure customers that you are buying Sterling Silver.

Here is a photo showing hallmarks in detail:

Precious metals used in jewelry and giftware manufacture are always used as an alloy. The precious metal must be mixed with other elements to give it the necessary properties such as flexibility to produce a desirable and durable article.

Even the most experienced jeweler or chemist cannot tell how much precious metal there is in an alloy, just by looking at it, nor whether a thick plating of gold is covering a base metal interior. Due to the high price of precious metals, this offers a huge opportunity for fraud and there has therefore always been a need to protect the public, and honest suppliers, from those who are tempted to cheat them.

Therefore all items being sold as gold, silver, platinum or palladium in the UK must be hallmarked to confirm that they meet the legal standard. This cannot be done by the manufacturer or importer; goods must be submitted to one of the four UK Assay Offices, or an Assay Office belonging to the International Convention.

 

The only items which are exempt are those which are under the legal weight threshold:

• SAMPLING traditional method to remove a tiny piece of the precious metal for testing. Today we are more likely to use a non-destructive method using XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry) machines

• ASSAYING to determine whether the precious metal content of the alloy meets the required standard. 

• HALLMARKING to apply the appropriate mark to the article.