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The Birmingham Assay Office, one of the four assay offices in the United Kingdom, is located in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. The development of a silver industry in 18th century Birmingham was hampered by the legal requirement that items of solid silver be assayed, and the nearest Assay Offices were in Chester and London . [ 1 ]
In 1427, the date letter system was established in France, allowing the accurate dating of any hallmarked piece. In 1478, the Assay Office was established in Goldsmiths' Hall. At this time, the date letter system was introduced in England. This was originally intended to be the mark of an official known as the Assay Master, who was sworn in ...
The date mark is a letter indicating the exact year in which the piece was made. The typeface, whether the letter is uppercase or lowercase, and even the shape inside which the letter is stamped, must all be taken together to determine the year.
The museum opened in 1992 [5] originally as the Jewellery Quarter Discovery Centre, as part of the city's Heritage Development Plan. [6] [7] It preserves this 'time capsule' of a jewellery workshop [8] [9] and also tells the 200-year story of the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, the centre of the British jewellery industry, and its traditional craft skills.
The assay office marks for London, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Edinburgh. The third from the left shows the rose for Sheffield. The Assay Office was then founded and hallmarked its first piece on 20 September 1773. Lots were drawn to determine which marks the offices would use. Sheffield won and chose the crown, while Birmingham took the anchor ...
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After its revolution, Mexico continued to use its colonial Mo monogram mint mark shown on either side of the date in the Spanish Milled Dollar. The United States of America established mints in Charlotte, North Carolina and Dahlonega, Georgia in 1838 after the Georgia Gold Rush and put its first mint marks on the gold coins struck there. [ 14 ]