|
|
Java-E UK - Sponsor Hallmarks Explained
Please note that these hallmarks only apply to items sold from/in the UK - items sold from other countries have nowhere near the same level of provenance or enforcement.
The Sponsor mark indicates the person or company that commissioned, manufactured, or sold the item. It's the first person in the manufacturing/retail chain who picked up the responsibility for ensuring and proving that the item was a genuine precious-metal item. Therefore, it could be the mark of the person/company who physically casted the item, or it could be the mark of a wholesaler, or a retailer - it depends on how early-on in the chain somebody took responsibility for the item and wanted to prove its true worth to the next person in the chain.
All the items that we sell have our (Java-E UK) sponsor mark on them, as we buy/commission items specifically without any marks on them so that we can get them tested and marked ourselves using the most reputable assay office procedures available, with the best level of provenance.
Many hundreds of years ago, a sponsor mark was usually just a picture (such as a fish), but now it's the initials (or abbreviation) of the sponsor's name encased in a specific type of frame. It's only the full combination of the type of frame, the letters, and the assay office that signifies a unique/specific sponsor. For example, to prove that Java-E UK is a sponsor on an item, it would need to have the letters 'Ja' surrounded by a rectangular frame, and to also have the Birmingham Assay Office mark (an anchor).
If you want to find out who the sponsor of an item is, you need to first find out the Assay Office by looking at the Assay mark, and then you can contact the relevant Assay Office with a picture/diagram of the sponsor mark in question - they should then be able to tell you who the sponsor was. If doing this, it would be useful to the Assay Office if you could also supply them with the date mark (if there is one) so that they know where to begin looking in their records (bear in mind that hallmarks have been in existence in the UK since about 1300, so there are a lot of sponsors).
|
Sponsor's Mark (Java-E UK Identifier)
|
|
IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT: The UK has probably the most stringent precious metal and hallmarking consumer laws in the world. No items which are over a certain weight (about 7 grams) can be sold as Silver, Gold, or Platinum in the UK unless they have been hallmarked by one of the 4 UK Assay Offices, and it is the Assay Offices who perform all the purity tests for the relevant items. As we sell from the UK, we are subject to these stringent laws, and we are happy that such laws protect all UK jewellery customers, and that as a result of these laws, UK hallmarked items have probably the best provenance in the world.
For more details about what the various hallmarks mean in general, click on the relevant options on the left-side menu under the [Hallmark Info] section.
|