Fine jewellery listings which require a hallmark

[wyntersemporium]

Does anyone know what this is about 

I do not hallmark the Sterling rings I sell I buy them in from a wholesalers 

We’re getting in touch to remind you that fine jewellery sold on eBay is subject to UK hallmarking law as outlined in our jewellery policy (first time I've heard of that) 

The Hallmarking Act 1973 sets out the requirements on composition, hallmarking, assaying and description of items containing precious metals, such as jewellery.

If you want to learn more about UK hallmarking requirements, you can contact your local Assay office or visit the hallmarking guidance section of Gov.uk.

Please be aware that items without a valid hallmark which fall under UK hallmarking law won’t pass our Authenticity Guarantee.

theyre going to lose a lot of sellers on here because of this I'm thinking of pulling mine off here.

[wyntersemporium]

Have literally pulled all my Sterling silver off now . Cretins the lot of them anyway they didn't sell on here now looking.

Will reduce the prices and sell somewhere else 

[sheba-knows-best]

As someone who is a hallmark **bleep** - I know nothing - I would like to know more about this. Shouldnt items be hall-marked? is this good or bad? @ojewellery I'm curious...

[wyntersemporium]

I've pulled a 15 rings which had only 925 on them bought from a jewellery wholesale company in the uk they do not have those assay marks on where they are made rich. But does have the original sellers marks in as they do in house only 

in the small print it says all jewellery must be sent to some office and inckudes costume jewellery as well ? Its the first I've heard of it. 

[tressygirl]

How bizarre that they are not accepting a mark of .925 as a mark for solid silver.

Excuse my ignorance but I always thought this Was confirmation ?

Is it worth calling CS  make sure it's Dublin who answer they 're more likely to very first thing when the lines first open at 8 a.m.  asking them if the marking of .925 is sufficient ?

I did Google the meaning of a .925 and talk about ambiguous !

If you buy sterling silver jewellery regularly you'll often see . 925 stamped into the metal. This stamp is to signify that it's real sterling silver (as opposed to perhaps silver plated). However a 925 stamp is not a hallmark or a guarantee that your piece really is sterling silver.

I join in your frustration here.

@wyntersemporium 

[ojewellery · Accepted solution]

The email, as often with legal type eBay communications, is very formally worded and takes a bit of reading and interpretation.

Basically eBay have taken on board that jewellery sold in the UK needs to comply with the hallmarking act.  

Authenticity guarantee is for items over £500 - I'm not sure that's your usual silver ring price point and this is where the focus currently appears to be.

From reading posts on the forums, plus looking at completed listings, for years people have been selling high value items (£500+) with metal stamps they sometimes refer to as hallmarks and no guarantee that the £1500 heavy curb link gold chain is actually gold.  A hallmark (dealer notice below) consists of multiple parts the metal fineness mark (925 for sterling silver, 375 for 9ct gold) plus the assay office stamp to verify that the metal is that level of fineness.  There are potentially all sorts of other stamps as part of the group including the compulsory dealer stamp (I have registered OJ in a hexagon).

Again from reading various posts I am picking up that authenticity guarantee are having to reject items that aren't hallmarked which has no doubt triggered the education/ slightly over zelously worded email campaign.

Whilst the wording of the email causes heightened anxiety, eBay taking a stance is a good thing.  Longer term this could make eBay THE marketplace for buying fine jewellery.  No other platform has tried to tackle the very high value jewellery market.  If the marketplace creates an environment of trust it has a positive ripple effect across other categories.

Hallmarking covers items over certain metal weights.  There are exemptions for items below these weights.  For silver this is 7.78g. 

A ring would need to be very chunky to exceed this weight.  However most bangles, even slim ones are in excess of this weight.  I attach images of a thin bangle to show its metal weight and a hair clip I designed to be just under the hallmarking weight requirements.

Pendants would need to be big to be over 7.78g and pendants and chains are treated as separate items for purposes of hallmarking weight.  As a rough rule of thumb, items are considered as one item i.e. a necklace if they require tools to be broken down into component parts.  

Hairclip designed to be just under silver weight to require hallmarkthin bangle requires hallmark

For gold the exemption weight is just 1g.  Just about all gold rings therefore need a hallmark.  Earrings are weighed individually so studs often don't, for gold chains a 0.8mm curb link (fine) is just under 1g.

Lots of items purchased international wholesale and sold on (and off) marketplaces fall foul of the act and aren't hallmarked. 

If you have an item above the exemption weight and it just has a metal stamp, it can be sent to an assay office and hallmarked.  The metal stamp gets a strike through and a full hallmark applied.  There are four main assays in the UK London (lion), Birmingham (anchor), Sheffield (tudor rose) and Edinburgh (castle).  There are also reciprocal hallmarking agreements with various other countries.

[bravergrace]

I don't see why a jewellery seller would complain about being asked to comply with the law.

The whole point of the hallmarking laws is to prevent inferior gold and silver being passed off as complying with British standards, when they don't.  This may be expensive and inconvenient, but it's not unreasonable.

I believe you can still sell the stuff, but you can't describe it as gold or silver unless it complies with hallmarking rules , ie if it's over a certain weight it needs to be hallmarked, subject to certain exceptions - nobody's going to insist that museums start hallmarking ancient Egyptian gold before selling it - but this has always been the law.  The only new thing is that eBay have decided to make traders comply with the existing law.

"We've always been allowed to break the law" isn't really a good reason for continuing to do so.

[pg_kicks]

This sounds like a great rundown of everything anyone would need to know, the only thing I would add from the AG side as over 50% of my items go via them albeit a different category. They often reduce the value or add extra styles/brands (for sneakers) without actually letting you know so I'd expect the £500 to drop or raise depending on how eBay see the scheme going, most likely drop down to a lower value which can only really be a good thing.

Do they use DPD next day on jewellery like on sneakers?  I actually like those sales better as eBay always over estimate delivery date so buyers are always impressed when they get the item within 3 business days and ebay tell them its going to be between 4-7.

[ojewellery]

Currently I've barely got anything at the Authenticity Guarantee (AG) price and haven't sent anything off.  I might expand that way later in the year introducing 18ct ranges.

I hope that eBay use royal mail special delivery guarantee as a courier.  This is, to my knowledge, the only off the shelf postage service which insures jewellery in transit.

[pg_kicks]

I've just had a look and it seems the standard £8.95 postage hasnt been introduced to jewellery as of yet, I can see that being added first. Thats what my buyers pay and it covers the postage to ebay and the postage from ebay to the buyer, all done by DPD unless they are in highlands or islands, I just drop them off at the post office and they put them through as a return so eBay take all responsibility if it is lost in transit and it gets to eBay within 24 hours 99% of the time. I know you said DPD dont cover jewellery but I guess with the amount of labels eBay must buy they will either get a bespoke deal with a courier if they do introduce the postage charge. 

[magpiecorner1]

Don't let anyone cause you to have a knee jerk reaction.

Any silver item under 7.8g requires no assay mark.  Anything over should be assayed by your supplier.

I suspect the authentication process is having problems.  A couple of weeks ago I helped a customer find gold charm bracelet on eBay, after 2 she had bought both failed eBay authentication.  Both absolutely correct goldmarks - for the period they were made - one was even marked on every link, both beautiful nine carat gold bracelets. 

The problem, I suspect, was that the authentication team aren't working to the hallmarking act, which only applies to jewellery made from 1975, when the 1973 Act was passed.  BUT it is not definitively possible to date pieces without hallmarks.  

I know that both bracelets were made between about 1935 and 1960, difficult to prove, especially as many padlocks were made by different manufacturers to the bracelet links.  I would suppose that the authentication team has an XRF tester to test precious metals without damaging, but I don't know.  They should have them, because heaps and heaps of jewellery made before 1975 and without Assay marks, are sold.

Worse still, none UK  pieces obviously don't have UK hallmarks, even major manufacturers like Georg Jensen, Tiffany, Cartier, unless originally sold in the UK.  Cartier will have full French Assay marks, but we are relying on the assessors to know their stuff, and Tiffany - as well as every other US maker, does have Assay marks.

Foreign pieces with foreign Assay marks are allowed to be sold here but many countries don't assay jewellery, so it's a grey area 

 l expect a £50k Tiffany piece that sails through the US authentication system could be refused by their UK team.  Ok, for a £50k item easy enough to get assayed (except 14 carst in USA is allowed to be, for instance, 13.5 to 14.5k unless 14kp, which is plumb and therefore guaranteed to be at least 14k, so 13.9k pieces will be hallmarked 9 carat! 

A mare's nest!

But 925 only is ok on smaller pieces.  Though most fake silver is almost certainly the small and light pieces and almost certainly modern.  Latest are those marked 925S  or S925 (excluding Scandinavian pieces).  I'm finding virtually all are silver plated.

[wyntersemporium]

Have no idea at all. Not all rings I have to sell have the full markings on them. Just 925 that's it. 
apparently you have to send it to eBay for checking before the ring goes in eBay, there's literally thousands of eBay sellers who sell their own rings or who have a business to sell rings.
 

[wyntersemporium]

I've seen s925 on some rings which you basically see as Chinese tat. And in the feedback it says turns fingers green. 
hopefully it'll catch some out. 

[magpiecorner1]

I sell vintage and used British and Scandinavian jewellery and odd bits from US makers.

Some 90% of the new silver jewellery listed on eBay is outwith the Hallmarking act - most of it is under the 7.8g weight consideration, and a good deal of it either is fake or states it is sterling silver in the heading and only states it is .925 silver plating way down in the listing.  I've boxes and boxes of second hand 'silver' jewellery bought on eBay, kept as a reminder of stupidity and as a help when testing.

Most UK sellers of new jewellery either buy from the UK, which would guarantee it was sterling silver because if it wasn't the penalties are heavy, or are buying from quality manufacturers throughout the world - it take 10 seconds and a bottle of acid to test!    It is perfectly possible to buy sterling silver pieces from China - but just as easy to get caught out.  And if under 7.8g (excluding stones) I'm not sure which law has been broken if any

, certainly not the 1975 hallmarking Act!

But, if I want to sell stunning piece of Georg Jensen silver, with post 1945 marks (Jensen marks, not assay marks (I rarely see a Jensen piece with a Danish assay mark) then, unless I can prove it was made prior to 1950, it shouldn't be sold as silver.   Must say the only piece of fake Jensen I have every come across - and I have bought many hundreds of pieces and handled thousands - had faux British assay marks on it. 

And as for 18 carat gold Harry Winston pieces - yep - worth getting assayed in the UK, but really takes away from vintage pieces - and at a cost, with the risk of loss unless to take it to the Assay Office in person.

We don't want to break the law and flog fake tat, and the idea of having to mark a piece of ancient Egyptian gold sounds mad, but could you prove it was ancient Egyptian and not make in the last 70 years?   If not doesn't matter whether or not it is pure gold, the law is the law and you can't sell it as gold!  Of course Egyptian is old, but what about, for instance, Alexander Ritchie?  He died in the 1930s, many but not all pieces were assayed, but how do you prove the item was made before his death, or even before the 1950?  Grant and Cheney are massively collectible, but some of there pieces were correctly marked 925 and maker's mark, correctly lodged at Edinburgh Assay Office, well correct when made, now shouldn't be sold as sterling silver, neither of them produced prior to about 1960.

The hallmarking act was introduced to ensure all items made from 1975 had standardised marks - fair does - but  suddenly all jewellery not marked with assay marks (a 9ct or 18ct or .375 or silver mark only is not an assay mark) couldn't be sold as made of precious metals.  They they had a rethink re foreign jewellery, and then they realised that this affected sales of Georgian, Victorian and Art Deco jewellery, so nowadays if you can prove an item was made before 1950, its ok to sell as precious metal.  Trouble is how do you prove it?  I can date most jewellery within a few years, but I can't always prove those dates.

Its not that we have 'always been allowed to break the law' its that describing a piece as silver which has the lawful silver marks at date of manufacture is now breaking a law that was brought in after

the item was made!  And to assay the piece would require the original maker's assay mark to be removed!! 

Though if you live in America, you could advertise the same British made piece as sterling silver and sell and ship it to someone in the UK quite legally!

Madness!

[36maddy]

The authentification centre will not pass any jewellery without a UK hallmark as I have just found with earrings marked 750 and fully certified with serial numbers and certificate.

Jewellery under vintage category does not go the the authentification centre.

[ojewellery]

@36maddy  Is each earring under 1g then so shouldn't need hallmarking?