Selling silver

[turnedlight]

Thanks for that too! Excellent news

[Helen G]

I spoke to the Edinburgh assay office recently and the man I spoke to was really helpful and answered all my questions really clearly.
He said if a piece is fine silver thai silver or sterling or a mix of those on an item they test all the silver (with you sending it as a mixed item) and they mark at what the overall lowest silver content is, so if a piece is mostly fine silver with a sterling clasp then it would be marked as sterling as that is the lowest silver content.
You weigh the piece without the beads and that is the total weight of it.
You can sell it without a mark but yes it has to be called white metal and not claimed to be silver if it is over a certain weight 7.78 grammes and not hallmarked
You choose and buy a makers mark which is what traces the item to you the maker and identifies the maker
the crown Hallmark is added and the silver content IE 925
the cost was when I called, about 47.00 to register for 10 years , makers mark punch 55.00, cost of items about 10.00 but this gets less when you have more items .
they were really nice I copied down these notes and am pretty sure this is all right but a phone call will clarify anything!
Sorry if I'm repeating whats already been said, its just that i had checked all this out recently and found the guy I spoke to really knowledgeable and easy to speak to and thought I could pass it on

Well as promised the assay office have just phoned me and pretty much confirmed the above post.

This is what my man at Sheffield Assay Office had to say:

"If an individual item or the total precious metal content of an item e.g the combined weight of precious metal only in a glass bead necklace,  is under the compulsory weight of 7.8g then you are able to describe it as anything you want, silver, sterling silver, hilltribe silver etc.


If an individual item or the total precious metal content of an item e.g the combined weight of precious metal only in a glass bead necklace,  is over the compulsory weight of 7.8g then it must carry a UK hallmark for you to be able to use the word silver in any description when selling it.

You are allowed to describe items of any weight as white metal at any time."

I also questioned the wording on my website which is:

"I use a variety of soft glass in a wonderful array of colours and as a trained jeweller I often transform my beads into beautiful jewellery. Nothing is silver plated, all components are Sterling and I use Sterling, Karen Hill Tribe and Bali silver beads throughout."

I asked about the use of the word silver in general information and he was a bit flustered and said "that's a bit woolly" and decided that it is OK but that he would advise, because I am implying that the metal used is silver, that I should show due diligence and randomly test items/components I buy in as many sold as silver, particularly online, are not actually silver."

Even the man "in the know" agreed that it is all a bit "grey" so what hope is there for us to be fully "in the know" I feel a little more comfortable with it now though  

[Amber]

Very, very confusing 

I had wondered about the PMC/Silver Clay thing  - can you describe the process of making fine silver items from PMC on an info page on your website, but describe the actual item as white metal on your shop page? I guess this is one of those grey areas.

Interesting that you can verbally call it whatever you want, though!

[Helen G]

From what the guy told me, yes you can describe the process and what you use on an info page or home page using the words silver , fine silver etc, but not in the description of an item you are offering for sale.