Hallmark: A History of the London Assay Office

The minute books of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, which are the core of this study, provide an almost unbroken record since the 1330s, and names prominent in the company's affairs include Isaac Newton, Charles II, Paul de Lamerie, the Vyners and the Garrards. Appendices include a glossary of terms and a list of London silver hallmarks. Testing articles made of precious metals and stamping them with hallmarks to indicate that they are of a minimum standard of purity has been carried out by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths for seven centuries. At the beginning of the 14th century Edward I initiated the first, rudimentary hallmarking system, and by 1327 the Goldsmiths' Guild had been granted its first royal charter. The ensuing history of the London Assay Office encompasses royal greed, forgery and counterfeiting, interlopers from abroad, plague, war and fluctuating fortunes - and continuing worries over the intrinsic value of the metal. Even today the Assay Office participates in the ancient tradition of the trial of the pyx, testing the coin of the realm.