A guide from Auge Atelier
What is a hallmark?
A hallmark, in Italian, punzone - is a mark stamped or lasered onto a piece of precious metal jewellery to show its purity and its maker. In Italy, this system is governed by Decreto Legislativo 22 maggio 1999, n. 251 and its implementing regulation, DPR 30 maggio 2002, n. 150.
Marking precious metal is a form of consumer protection with roots going back to Italy's earliest goldsmithing guilds, long before national unification in 1861 created the first countrywide system. It exists so that you, the buyer, don't have to take a seller's word for what a piece is made of.
It's very difficult to know what jewellery is made of just by looking at or touching it. Hallmarking ensures that a buyer can trust that a piece is genuinely what the seller says it is.
Does All Jewellery Have to Be Hallmarked in Italy?
Italian law recognises four precious metals, platinum, palladium, gold and silver and requires that objects made from them carry two things:
- The title - the fineness of the metal, expressed in millesimi
- The identification mark - the registered mark of the manufacturer or importer responsible for the piece
Maker's Mark
The identification mark tells you who is responsible for a piece, an individual goldsmith, workshop, retailer or importer. To obtain one, a business must register with the Chamber of Commerce for its province, which took over this role from the old provincial metric and assay offices.
Since 1968, the Italian maker's mark has taken a consistent form: a small polygon (originally a lozenge shape) containing three elements
- A five-pointed star, representing the guarantee of the Italian Republic, on the left
- The maker's registration number in the centre
- A two-letter province code on the right (for example, MI for Milano, FI for Firenze, VI for Vicenza, AR for Arezzo)
The Fineness Mark
The fineness mark shows the purity of the metal, expressed in millesimi rather than in carats or percentages. Take 18ct gold as an example: its fineness mark is 750, meaning 75% of the metal is pure gold, with the remainder made up of alloyed metals such as silver or copper.
The legal fineness values recognised under Italian law are:
Gold: 999, 916, 750, 585, 375 Silver: 925, 835, 800 Platinum and palladium have their own recognised fineness values under the same framework
Italy has never used a date-letter system to record the exact year a piece was marked. Instead, the style of the punzone itself can help place a piece in time, because the format of the Italian maker's mark has changed several times over the last century and a half:
- 1872–1934: an optional system following unification, most recognisably a crowned woman's head mark, alongside separate fineness stamps
- 1934–1944: an 800 fineness stamp within an oval, alongside a hexagonal lozenge bearing the maker's number, the fascio littorio (a symbol of the Fascist era), and the province initials
- 1944–1968: the same oval and lozenge format, but with the fascio littorio removed following the fall of the regime
- 1968–present: the current format — a polygon containing the five-pointed star of the Republic, the maker's registration number, and the two-letter province code
Recognising which era a mark belongs to is one of the tools we use when dating a piece.
Hallmarks and Antique or Vintage Jewellery
It matters hugely to us that Auge Atelier customers know exactly what they're buying from the age of a piece to the gemstones and metals it's made of.
This means that responsibility falls, in practice, on the seller: to research, test and document a piece thoroughly enough to be able to say with confidence what it is, how old it is, and what it's made of particularly when a piece predates or falls outside standard modern marking.
How We Ascertain the Age of a Piece
We take a number of steps to date every antique or vintage item we sell:
Research. We compare materials, manufacturing methods, gemstone cuts, setting techniques and design aesthetic against verified pieces in reference books, museum collections and archives. Certain techniques and materials are strongly associated with particular periods and regions of Italian goldsmithing.
Checking for reproduction. We look for signs that a piece might be a later reproduction a lack of wear consistent with its supposed age, or details (like a modern gemstone cut) that don't match the era the piece is meant to represent.
Looking for genuine wear. Old repairs, resizing and honest signs of age are reassuring, not a defect. A piece in flawless, untouched condition can sometimes be more of a red flag than a reassurance, unless you know exactly what you're looking at.
Sourcing carefully. We buy from experienced dealers and auction houses with established reputations, rather than from scrap dealers or pawnbrokers, and only very rarely direct from the public. Trusting who we buy from is part of how we can be confident in what we then sell to you.
Independent opinions. For unusual or particularly rare pieces, we consult independent experts in our network of antique jewellery specialists, so our conclusions aren't formed in isolation.
How We Test the Purity of Precious Metals In-House
As part of authenticating a piece, we test the metal itself:
- A chemical (acid) test, where a weak acid is applied to the metal and the resulting colour change indicates its approximate purity
- An electronic gold and platinum tester, which uses electrical conductivity to give a further reading on purity
For anything we want to verify beyond doubt, we can also draw on XRF, a non-destructive method that gives a full atomic breakdown of an item's metal content.
Our Commitment
Antique and vintage jewellery is never as clear-cut as a new piece fresh from the workshop, and we take that seriously. Rather than treating the absence of a modern mark as a shortcut, we do everything reasonably possible, research, physical testing, and independent verification to be able to stand behind every piece we sell, and to make sure you always know exactly what you're buying from Auge Atelier.