Thank you; praise from the three of you is praise indeed.
Sophie, I think that you may be referring to the Trial of the Pyx, which takes place annually and at which randomly selected newly-minted coins are tested for their metal content.
I’m pretty sure that the query you make about the use of the term “white metal” refers to the law that demands that anyone (not only auction houses but dealers and the general public as well) offering any article with silver content for sale, which does not bear British government hallmarks, is obliged to describe it as being of “silver coloured metal”.
In order that an existing item of silver be hallmarked, whether it be old or new, repaired or not, it must be offered to a UK assay office, where it will be tested and hallmarked with the current Sterling or Britannia standard silver hallmarks, if the silver content is of the required standard.
The fact that an item has been repaired does not necessitate its being sent to an assay office, this is only necessary if the owner wishes to describe the item as “silver” and not “silver coloured metal”.
You are correct in assuming that if an older item were offered to an assay office, whether after a repair or not, it would be returned with the current, new, hallmark including a maker’s or sponsor’s mark.
The silver base on this paperweight is of spun, not wrought or cast silver, i.e. it has been produced on a lathe, the silver being forced into shape whilst being spun around, rather as a potter makes a pot. This is a comparatively modern and far cheaper process of producing silver hollow-wares and uses very little silver; however, along with die-stamped silver, it is generally impossible to repair spun silver successfully and never invisibly, even after silver-plating over any repair.
Whether this silver mount had been repaired or not, it would not have been obligatory to offer it for assay. In view of this, I feel that it would have been an act of madness, that few would have committed, to remove an original but unmarked “silver metal” mount for whatever reason, have it hallmarked and so have to re-affix it as a “silver” but apparently modern mount.
Topic: Islington Paperweight (Read 3970 times)
