Birmingham silver hallmarks, 2011
Silver assayed in Birmingham in 2011 carries the date letter m, alongside the marks below.
Reading it
The anchor places the piece at Birmingham. That mark alone rules out every other office in Britain, which is why it is worth finding first.
From 1975 the date letter is common to every British assay office, so the same letter in the same year appears beside a leopard’s head, an anchor and a rose alike.
A maker’s mark — initials in a shaped punch — sits alongside these and is the one mark this tool cannot help with: there are tens of thousands, and identifying one means a register rather than a rule.
The same year at the other offices, 2011
If you can read the letter but not the town mark, compare it against these. The letterform and the shape of the shield are what separate one office from another.