Having seen so many faked hallmarks I wondered who made tools with fake hallmarks.
Classical engraving in steel is very skilled and expensive process limited to very few masters who work with hunting rifle factories and steel engraved weapons are extremely expensive. A square inch of hand engraving costs about Euro 1000. The photos depict a hallmarking tool for 0.900 silver, borrowed from a jeweler (it is curved for easier strike of rings). The tip with 900 is barely visible to naked eye. He has paid DM 1000 for it at the time, and there was only one engraver who could do it.
Unfortunately, I was not aware of laser engraving: ``The best traditional engraving materials started out to be the worst laser-engravable materials. This problem has now been solved using lasers at shorter wavelengths. ``
It means that laser technology can make any possible steel hallmarking tool. On the other hand, if it is so advanced and precise, why do they make mistakes and poor quality of hallmarks and cannot even make proper ``84`` hallmark and let alone St George for Moscow ? I have never seen such a tool so far.
Besides, there is another issue: what happened to the original hallmarking tools? Both Serbia and The Kingdom of Yugoslavia had very elaborate and nice hallmarks, as seen in Tardy`s. A relative of mine worked in the Assay Office as a night guard but was familiar with their inventory. Do you think that any of those genuine hallmarking tools were still there? Of course not! They simply vanished into thin air. What about Russian Imperial hallmarking tools? I doubt that they remained in scattered Assayer’s offices during WW I and the revolution. What about town hallmarking tools when the system changed in 1899? I doubt they were officially destroyed. If not, where are they now? The same question can be asked for Germany when ``crescent and crown`` was introduced. Excuse me if you find this ``off topic`` but I have a reliable witness that all hallmarking tools from our Assay Office ARE NOT THERE ANY MORE. If they are still used by fakers, the only thing we can rely on is the quality of silver or ``how it’s made``.
Ivan