Midnight Pearl Necklace
£95.75
Wise Owl Pearl Necklace
£59.09
Baroque Pearl Layered Bracelet
£59.09
Pearl Garden Beaded Necklace
£58.35
Pieces from our collection
Flip over almost any piece of quality jewellery and you'll find tiny stamped marks — a compressed passport telling you exactly what the piece is made of. Once you can read them, you can assess jewellery at a glance, whether it's a family heirloom or a flea-market find.
The fineness numbers
Most marks are millesimal fineness numbers: parts of precious metal per thousand. Here are the ones you'll actually encounter:
| Stamp | Metal | Purity |
|---|---|---|
| 800 | Silver (continental) | 80% |
| 925 | Sterling silver | 92.5% |
| 958 | Britannia silver | 95.8% |
| 375 | 9K gold | 37.5% |
| 585 | 14K gold | 58.5% |
| 750 | 18K gold | 75% |
| 916 / 999 | 22K / 24K gold | 91.6% / 99.9% |
| 850 / 900 / 950 | Platinum | 85–95% |
| PD500 / PD950 | Palladium | 50% / 95% |
The letter codes
Letters usually describe construction rather than purity. GP or GEP means gold plated (electroplated); HGE is "heavy gold electroplate"; GF or markings like 1/20 14K GF mean gold filled — the fraction tells you gold is 1/20th of the weight. 925 with a gold-coloured surface usually means gold vermeil: sterling silver underneath, real gold on top. PT or PLAT indicates platinum. A crossed-out or absent mark on a gold-coloured piece generally means base metal costume jewellery — which is fine, as long as it was priced accordingly.
UK hallmarks: more than a number
The UK has one of the world's oldest consumer-protection systems — hallmarking has existed for over 700 years. A full UK hallmark contains at least three compulsory symbols: the sponsor's mark (who submitted the piece), the fineness number (e.g. 925 or 750), and the assay office mark — a leopard's head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a rose for Sheffield, a castle for Edinburgh. Optional extras include a date letter and traditional symbols like the lion passant for sterling silver. Items over the legal weight thresholds (1 gram for gold, 7.78 grams for silver) must be hallmarked to be legally sold as precious metal in the UK.
A caveat and a promise
Stamps can be counterfeited, so treat them as strong evidence rather than proof — when real value is at stake, an assay office or jeweller can verify the metal itself. And as always with our own jewellery: every product page states the exact materials, so the stamp and the description will always tell the same story.