Scraping a small portion of a gold coin, or diluting a golden ornament with non-precious metals while selling it as pure gold, could in time build a small fortune and that type of counterfeiting was not uncommon in days gone by.
Since pre-Roman times gold and silver have been used as currency or as the counter deposit for money and one can imagine that a not so scrupulous person, with little fear of severe punishments, would find a means to tamper with the precious metal. Although the technicalities in this legendary story are most likely based on myth, it does give an early account of fraud with precious metals. The famous story ends with Archimedes running through the streets shouting “eureka, eureka” after he found a means to expose the deceit while he sat in a bathtub. King Hiero II of Syracuse gave Archimedes the assignment to investigate the purity of a newly commissioned golden wreath, believing silver was added to the gold content. In the first century BC, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio described Archimedes’ discovery of hydrostatic weighing. Rather, they were an early type of consumer protection. Contemporary jewelry historians use hallmarks for research purposes but these hallmarks were never intended to make the life of appraisers easier.
Hallmark fonty professional#
Although the study of hallmarks serves as a wonderful research avocation to many involved in the antiques trade, a trained professional can, and should, put such a desired object in the proper time frame without the presence of such marks. The most encountered hallmark on jewelry is undoubtedly the “purity” mark which indicates the total amount of gold or silver used to manufacture a coveted jewel. For estate jewelers and jewelry historians, hallmarks provide for an extra source of information to accurately date a jewelry object and determine by whom it was made.
0 kommentar(er)
