Sterling Silver, Oval Anchor Tie Pin

Hallmarked Sterling Silver, Tie Tack/Pin, with a raised Anchor design.

This item is hallmarked with the GT hallmark.

What is hallmarking and why is it required?

Due to their nature, precious metals are very soft, and have to be mixed with another alloy such as copper, in order to make them strong, workable, and stand up to being worn daily, but maintain their attractive properties as well.However, due to the high value of the precious metals there is a temptation to reduce the quantity of precious metal in the item, increasing the profit.Hallmarking was developed in order to independently prove how much of the advertised precious metal is in the item.
Therefore, Items made up of precious metals such as God, Silver, Platinum or Palladium in the UK are tested by an Assay office, to assess the amount of silver in them and then stamped by the Assay office so that the end users can be confident in their purchase.
There is a weight exemption for each precious metal, Sterling Silver, which I create my times from has a legal weight threshold of 7.78g.So technically I do not need to hallmark my earrings and smaller pendants.But as I want people to be confident in the quality of my times, I hallmark all items, including each earring.

I use, the Birmingham assay office for my Hallmarking, and their mark is an Anchor.

My Hallmark looks like the image in the last picture, I would have used a photograph of the actual hallmark, but it is so small so it fits on earrings that it is really difficult to photograph