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British hallmarks on Swiss origins? Interesting watch case

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:02 pm
by eldarinn
Hello everybody. I have this unusual pocket watch. The movement is an interesting one for itself but that's for a different forum :-)

As you can see on the back cover, the top carries a 0,800 Swiss purity hallmark. On the sides of the logo there is the London Hallmark and British Sterling Lion (??) and on the bottom another hallmark with the digits 13 and above it some kind of a crown that looks a bit like the Chester Import mark but I am quite confident it is not.

Can anyone tell the story?
Thanx!
x
x

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:39 pm
by nigel le sueur
Hi
My first thought is that they cannot be British Hallmarks, they look a bit odd, another thing is that it is marked .800 to be sterling the silver content must be .925
l look forward to any other comments
Regards
Nigel

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:12 pm
by buckler
I agree with Nigel. We seem to have THREE purity marks here .
The English Sterling Lion (92.5%)
The .800 for 800/1000 (80%)
and 13 lot for 13/16 ( 81.25%

It looks to me as if someone is trying to put marks to convince all possible markets that this is silver. None convince me !

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:12 pm
by admin
The Swiss marks are legitimate, I imagine the retailer wanted to instill a sense of security in other European markets.
Regards, Tom

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:36 am
by buckler
Sounds a bit like the umpteen page handbook that comes with most products today - half a page in English and the rest in as many other languages as they could find