Art and Antique Dealers

The vast majority of English, Scottish and Irish silver produced in the last 500 years is stamped with either four or five symbols, known as hallmarks. The prime purpose of these marks is to show that the metal of the item upon which they are stamped is of a certain level of purity. The metal is tested and marked at special offices, regulated by the government, known as assay offices. Only metal of the required standard will be marked. It is a form of consumer protection, whose origin goes back almost 1000 years.

As the current twenties are off to a rocky start, we thought we’d take a look back at The Roaring Twenties and the fabulous jewellery they produced. This was a decade of economic prosperity and unprecedented freedoms in the Western world. People flocked to the cities from rural areas and with new technologies being invented,…