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Assay Office
Assay offices are institutions set up to assay (test the purity of) precious metals. This is often done to protect consumers from buying fake items. Upon successful completion of an assay (i.e. if the metallurgical content is found be equal or better than that claimed by the maker and it otherwise conforms to the prevailing law) the assay offices typically stamp a hallmark on the item to certify its metallurgical content. Hallmarking first appeared in France, with the Goldsmiths' Statute of 1260 promulgated under Étienne Boileau, Provost of Paris, for King Louis IX. US assay offices Title 15, Chapter 8, Section 291 of the United States Code makes it unlawful to stamp goods in the United States with "United States assay" or any similar stamp which gives the impression that the item has been officially assayed by the United States government. General overview and function of U.S. assay offices Assay offices did and do exist in the U.S., but they are affiliated with the governm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institution
An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and norms are all examples of institutions. Institutions vary in their level of formality and informality. Institutions are a principal object of study in social sciences such as political science, anthropology, economics, and sociology (the latter described by Émile Durkheim as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning"). Primary or meta-institutions are institutions such as the family or money that are broad enough to encompass sets of related institutions. Institutions are also a central concern for law, the formal mechanism for political rule-making and enforcement. Historians study and document the founding, growth, decay and development of institutions as part of political, economic and cultural history. Def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of List of islands of the United Kingdom, the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering . Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. It maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The UK had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London. The cities o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. The name of the city is usually interpreted as a Slavic term meaning ''place of linden trees'', in line with many other Slavic placenames in the region. Leipzig is located about southwest of Berlin, in the southernmost part of the North German Plain (the Leipzig Bay), at the confluence of the White Elster and its tributaries Pleiße and Parthe. The Leipzig Riverside Forest, Europe's largest intra-city riparian forest, has developed along these rivers. Leipzig is at the centre of Neuseenland (''new lake district''). This district has Bodies of water in Leipzig, several artificial lakes created from former lignite Open-pit_mining, open-pit mines. Leipzig has been a trade city s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dublin Assay Office
The Dublin Assay Office was established in 1637 to supervise the assaying of all gold and silver throughout the whole Kingdom of Ireland, when the Dublin Company of Goldsmiths was founded by royal charter (13 Charles I), re-establishing the medieval Guild of All Saints. Initially, hallmarks consisted of the goldsmiths' proper mark which was the maker's mark originally used to identify the silversmith or goldsmith responsible for making the article. The fineness mark, the crowned harp, was applied to 22 carat gold and sterling silver, which was silver of a standard of 925 parts of fine silver in each 1,000. In 1638 a date letter system was introduced and used in conjunction with the above marks. This date letter denotes the year in which the piece was made or hallmarked and is changed on 1 January each year. A new mark in the form of Hibernia was introduced on 25 March 1730 to indicate that a duty had been paid on all articles manufactured on or after that date. The Hibernia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh Assay Office
The Edinburgh Assay Office is the last remaining Assay Office in Scotland and one of four which remain in the United Kingdom. The Edinburgh Assay Office traces its hallmarking history back to 1457 when the first hallmarking act of Scotland was created. It is an independent privately run business, owned by the Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh. Since 1457, the deacon, or leader of the craft, assayed and marked the members' wares. However, in 1681, a dedicated Assay Master, John Borthwick, was appointed to oversee this task. The incorporation's importance in the life of the city and country was confirmed in 1687 when King James VII granted it a royal charter. The Edinburgh Assay Office is housed in a category B listed building, Goldsmiths Hall in the Broughton Street. It is a former church, built in 1816, which was fully refurbished and opened as the assay office in 1999 by Princess Anne. The assay office primarily tests and hallmarks precious metal. In 1973, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham Assay Office
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. Matthew Boulton and Birmingham's other great industrialists joined forces with silversmiths of Sheffield to petition Parliament for the establishment of assay offices in their respective cities. In spite of determined opposition by London silversmiths, an act of Parliament, the Plate Assay (Sheffield and Birmingham) Act 1772 ( 13 Geo. 3. c. 52), was passed in March 1773, just one month after the original petition was presented to Parliament, to allow Birmingham and Sheffield the right to assay silver. The Birmingham Assay Office opened on 31 August 1773 and initially operated from three rooms in the King's Head Inn on New Street employing only four staf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheffield Assay Office
The Sheffield Assay Office is one of the four remaining assay offices in the United Kingdom, the other three being in London, Birmingham, and Edinburgh. In 1773, Sheffield's silversmiths joined with those of Birmingham to petition Parliament for the establishment of assay offices in their respective cities. In spite of determined opposition by London silversmiths, an act of Parliament, the Plate Assay (Sheffield and Birmingham) Act 1772 ( 13 Geo. 3. c. 52), was passed in March, just one month after the original petition was presented to Parliament, to allow Birmingham and Sheffield the right to assay silver. 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. Originally, only silver produced within twenty miles of Sheffield could be marked at the office. From 1784, Sheffield was empowered to keep a register ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Assay Office
The Goldsmiths' Company Assay Office in London (also known as Assay Office London or the London Assay Office) is the oldest assay office in the United Kingdom. The company has provided hallmarking services since The Goldsmiths Company was founded in the 14th century. The company received its royal charter in 1327 and ranks fifth in order of precedence of the 12 great livery company, livery companies of the City of London. History Hallmarking dates back to the 14th century when Edward I of England passed a law requiring any item made of silver, which was offered for sale to be at least of equal quality as that of the coin of the realm (silver currency). The four wardens of the Goldsmiths’ Company were tasked with visiting workshops in the City of London to assay (test) silver articles. If these articles were found to be below standard they were originally forfeit to the king, but if they passed, each article received the king's mark of authentication which was the mark of a leopa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worshipful Company Of Goldsmiths
The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (commonly known as ''The Goldsmiths' Company'' and formally styled ''The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Goldsmiths of the City of London''), is one of the Great Twelve Livery Companies of the City of London, headquartered at Goldsmiths' Hall, London EC2. The company, which originates from twelfth-century London, received a Royal Charter in 1327 and ranks fifth in precedence of the City Livery Companies. Its motto is ''Justitia Virtutum Regina'', Latin for ''Justice is Queen of Virtues''. History Established as a medieval guild for the goldsmith trade, the term ''hallmarking'' derives from precious metals being officially inspected and marked at Goldsmiths' Hall in the City of London. In 1812, twenty almshouses were built on the former Perryn estate in Acton, on land bequeathed to the company by Alderman John Perryn in 1657. In 1891, the Goldsmiths' Company founded the Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute, bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palladium
Palladium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1802 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas (formally 2 Pallas), which was itself named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired by her when she slew Pallas. Palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form together a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals (PGMs). They have similar chemical properties, but palladium has the lowest melting point and is the least dense of them. More than half the supply of palladium and its congener platinum is used in catalytic converters, which convert as much as 90% of the harmful gases in automobile exhaust (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide) into nontoxic substances (nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor). Palladium is also used in electronics, dentistry, medicine, hydrogen purification ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Hallmarking Council
The British Hallmarking Council (BHC) is the organisation responsible for supervising hallmarking in the United Kingdom. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). The BHC was created under the Hallmarking Act 1973 (c. 43) to oversee the activities of the four remaining assay offices (located in London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...). The costs of its operations are met entirely by the four offices. References External links British Hallmarking Council website {{Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, collapsed Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Department for Business and Trade Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. Silver is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native metal, native silver"), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc Refining (metallurgy), refining. Silver has long been valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many bullion coins, sometimes bimetallism, alongside gold: while it is more abundant than gold, it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is typically measured on a per-mille basis; a 94%-pure alloy is described as "0.940 fine". As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had an enduring role in most human cultures. Other than in currency and as an in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
