For over 700 years goldsmithing, silversmithing and jewellery trade has blossomed in the UK. Centuries of the worlds finest craftspeople have come from the UK. The Goldsmiths’ Company has played an instrumental part in the development of the worldwide trade and Hallmarking has protected consumers for 700 years and has led to a system built on verified trust – one that can often be taken for granted.

The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office is where hallmarking began, and they have been testing and hallmarking precious metals for over 700 years. They knew their reputation for excellence in hallmarking, service, and support was both revered and unparalleled – and they saw themselves as not only the guardians and the history of hallmarking in the UK, but also the future of hallmarking and related services in the UK.

The historic image of the leopard’s head, the town mark for London, and the mark of The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office, continues to be internationally recognised as the stamp of approval and guarantee of quality from the renowned home of hallmarking. The leopard’s head mark of London has been used by some of the finest craftsmen in history, on some of the most prestigious and celebrated works.

Our job was to promote and help communicate:

1) Leverage the heritage of the origins of the Hallmark / The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office Hallmark to gold and silversmiths, and in turn the value and reassurance of a hallmark to their customers.

2) The added status and prestige of having a hallmark from where hallmarking began, The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office featuring the leopard’s head. The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office was the first Assay Office

3) Promote that The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office office offers the highest of service, skills and knowledge standards amongst the four Assay Office options available to the in the UK – and reinforce their fees structure compared to other Assay Offices due to the The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office superior staff skills and services.

4) Communicate that every mark matters as part of fees paid to The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office goes towards training thus creating a virtuous circle of education and support for both the current and next generation of gold and silversmithing individuals in the UK (with support for students, graduates, providing educational lectures and tours to the public, workshops, outreach presentations to colleges and schools) as well as being a guardian and touchstone for the trade overall.

5) And finally help promote their other associative services including laser marking, laboratory testing services, silver dating, and also their custom facilities within Heathrow.

Our solution and results?

Working within the visual system we had created during the rebrand The Goldsmiths’ Company we created a set of elegant print ads that were to appear in The Goldsmiths’ Company and trade publications.

Each ad communicated the assorted campaign messages, incorporating smart and emotive headlines combined with a single signature image, helping to showcase the skill of the The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office hallmarking on a wide variety of stunning and also challenging objects – or in the case of their testing services creating a neat pastiche of a laboratory measuring vessel to list the many services on offer.

We also introduced The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office hallmark leopard as sign-off signature for each advert, as both a signature of quality and to raise awareness of the hallmark / leopard itself.

The results were an uplift of brand and association of prestige in being the original and best Assay Office, a maintenance in volume commissions for hallmarking and associated services in the faced of increased competition.

And finally, an increased awareness of The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office’s unique support and reinvestment into the trade.

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Want to know more about hallmarking, see below, it’s fascinating…

What is Hallmarking and is important.

‘no goldsmith… shall from henceforth make or cause to be made any manner of vessel, jewel or any other thing of gold or silver except it be of the true alloy… and that no manner of vessel of silver depart out of the hands of the workers, until further, that it be marked with the leopard’s head’.

Statute of Edward I in 1300 (28 Edw. I c.20)

So why hallmark?

Hallmarking has protected consumers for 700 years and has led to a system built on verified trust – one that can often be taken for granted.

A hallmark:

• Is a set of component marks applied to articles of the precious metals gold, silver, platinum or palladium.
• Means that the article has been independently tested.
• Guarantees that it conforms to all legal standards of purity (fineness).
• Guarantees provenance by telling us where the piece was hallmarked, what the article is made from, and who sent the article for hallmarking.
• The standard hallmark formation is horizontal with minimal spacing between the marks.

The Full Traditional Hallmark comprises five marks:

• Sponsor’s mark – compulsory
• Traditional fineness mark
• Millesimal fineness mark – compulsory
• Assay Office mark – compulsory
• Date letter mark

The UK Hallmarking Act (1973) states that it is an offence for any person, in the course of trade or business, to describe an un-hallmarked article as being wholly or partly made of precious metal(s) or to supply un-hallmarked articles to which such a description is applied.

The Assay Office is a compulsory mark / element of any hallmark. This mark tells you which Assay Office tested and hallmarked the article – and The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office is where hallmarking began, and we have been testing and hallmarking precious metals for over 700 years.

Precious metals are rarely used in their purest form but are usually alloyed with other metals for workability, durability, wearability. It isn’t possible to detect an article’s precious metal content by sight or touch. Therefore, it is a legal requirement for an Assay Office to hallmark articles containing precious metals if they are described as such. Weight exemptions apply for items below certain weights: silver 7.78g; gold and palladium over 1g; and platinum over 0.5g to have a UK recognised hallmark.

The historic image of the leopard’s head, the town mark for London, and the mark of the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office continues to be internationally recognised as the stamp of approval and guarantee of quality from the renowned home of hallmarking.

The leopard’s head mark of London has been used by some of the finest craftsmen in history, on some of the most prestigious and celebrated works.

To find out in more depth about the history of Hallmarking do visit The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Offices website.
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