Hallmarks

What a hallmark is

A hallmark is a mark struck onto an object by a body independent of both the maker and the trader, which by that mark guarantees that the item has the declared fineness. In the Czech Republic that body is the Assay Office.

Assay control consists in establishing and verifying the fineness and the prescribed condition of the goods. Its result is the official marking of the goods with the hallmark of the relevant statutory fineness (Section 8 of the Hallmarking Act).

Fineness means the proportional content of the precious metal in the alloy by weight, expressed in thousandths (1/1000); pure metal has a fineness of 1000/1000 (Section 5(1)). Goods may be manufactured domestically, or imported for domestic trade, only if they have a statutory fineness laid down by the Act.

Hallmark, fineness number and maker's mark

A single piece of jewellery usually carries marks of three different origins side by side. Confusing them means giving a mark more weight than it carries.

Hallmark

The official mark of the Assay Office. It states that the goods were checked and found correct as to fineness, and it carries information about the metal used, its fineness and the period in which the mark was struck. On current marks the letter they contain also identifies the office branch that carried out the control.

Fineness number

A number expressing the corresponding fineness, struck durably onto the goods by the maker or the trader (Section 28(1)). It gives a quick indication of the fineness of the material. It is the simplest of the marks on an item — many engravers can cut a punch resembling it, and the fineness number is sometimes even cast together with the piece. It therefore also appears on goods that could never receive a hallmark, for instance on base-metal costume jewellery, and on its own it does not give sufficient information about the item.

Maker's mark

Usually a two- or three-character alphanumeric sign assigned by the Assay Office, derived from the name and surname or the business name of the maker, placed within a characterising outline and intended to mark goods produced by that maker (Section 4(h)).

Responsibility mark

A mark of the same construction, but derived from the name or business name of the trader, marking goods that the trader imported (Section 4(i)). Two outline shapes are reserved for responsibility marks; the remaining shapes belong to makers' marks.

The common term for the maker's mark and the responsibility mark is the identification mark. Striking it is arranged by the maker or the importer themselves. In the Czech Republic identification marks are almost always rendered as two or three letters, often the initials of the tradesperson; where initials coincide, the marks are distinguished by outline, typeface and the separator between letters.

Valid Czech hallmarks

The statutory finenesses are laid down in Section 5 of the Hallmarking Act. One hallmark is prescribed for each statutory fineness and precious metal; separate hallmarks exist for old goods that do not reach even the lowest statutory fineness (Section 19). The set below has been in use since 2004.

Old goods below the statutory fineness

Separate hallmarks are prescribed for old goods that do not reach even the lowest statutory fineness. They occur in two sizes.

Where goods are made of several precious metals, they are marked with the corresponding hallmarks for the metals used; marks are omitted for metals accounting for less than one fifth of the weight of the object and weighing less than 0.5 grams (Section 20(3)).

The AUREA pictorial overview of the marks is below, in the registration section. The authoritative depiction of individual marks is issued by the Assay Office.

• Go to the pictorial overview
• Depictions of the marks on the Assay Office website

How to read a mark

The elements below are documented by the Assay Office. The office publishes the symbols of individual marks as images rather than as verbal descriptions, so they are not described in words here.

Type of mark — metal, fineness and period

Besides the basic statement that the item was checked and found correct as to fineness, a Czech hallmark also expresses the metal used, its fineness and the period in which it was struck. All of this can be read from the type of the mark.

Fineness number in the mark

The statutory finenesses are numbered in the Act. Gold uses fineness no. 0 to 4, silver no. 0 to 5 and platinum no. 0 to 4; the numbering runs from the highest fineness down to the lowest (Section 5(1)).

Assay-office letter

As new branches were established, it became necessary to distinguish the marks between them by miniature letters. The letter is placed close to the fineness number.

P — Prague, J — Jablonec nad Nisou, B — Brno, O — Ostrava, T — Turnov, R — Tábor, Z — Pilsen, L — Olomouc, H — Hradec Králové, K — Červený Kostelec.

Orientation of the letter — Czech or Slovak office

At the Czech Assay Office the axis of the letter is perpendicular to the vertical axis of the mark. The otherwise identical marks of the Assay Office of the Slovak Republic carry letters oriented parallel to the vertical axis of the mark.

The “METAL” signs

Alongside the hallmarks, the implementing regulation also lays down the signs “METAL”, “MET” and “M” (Section 19).

Official mark for bars

A bar is marked with the official bar mark, in a large and a small version; it too carries the office letter.

The lettering is being introduced gradually and existing punches remain in use until stocks run out. Goods count as properly hallmarked regardless of which branch or office marked them, and no further re-testing or marking is required.

History of Czech hallmarking

Hallmarks have existed on Czech territory since the Middle Ages, though not always as a state guarantee of fineness — craft guilds and towns used them in the same sense. At first every maker marked their work with a name and a fineness figure, in loths for silver and carats for gold. Testing later passed to guild or town officers, then to other bodies, usually the mint, and finally to the state. The dates below are those given by the Assay Office.

1. 1788 The patent of Emperor Joseph II of 23 February 1788 introduced the marks of the Vienna Chief Mint Office for gold of 767, 545 and 326/1000 fineness.
2. 1806 In 1806 a branch assay office was established in Prague under the Chief Assay Office in Vienna; the Assay Office dates the origin of Czech hallmarking to that year. The imperial manifesto of Francis II of 20 August 1806 promulgated re-marking punches, which do not express fineness and therefore cannot be treated as valid hallmarking on their own.
3. 1824 The Act of 1 April 1824 laid down official hallmarks bearing the years 1824 to 1866, among them silver of 937.5/1000 (15 loths) and 812.5/1000 (13 loths).
4. 1866 Act No. 75/1866 of the Imperial Law Gazette, of 26 May 1866, introduced hallmarks for the whole of Austria-Hungary with effect from 1 August 1866. They were used on Czech territory until 28 February 1921, in Austria until 1922 and in Hungary until 1936.
5. 1921 Ministry of Finance Decree No. 596/1920 Coll. introduced the first Czechoslovak hallmarks with effect from 1 March 1921, replacing the former Austro-Hungarian marks.
6. 1929 Act No. 2/1928 Coll. on the fineness and assay control of platinum, gold and silver goods, adopted on 16 December 1927 and effective from 1 January 1929, brought the second Czechoslovak hallmarks together with Decree No. 216/1928 Coll. Until then platinum goods were not subject to assay control at all.
7. 1941 In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia a gold fineness of 333/1000 was established; from 1 January 1941 the former reserve mark known as the “bee” (or “fly”) served as its regular hallmark. From 30 January 1941 the silver marks were altered and the letter “Č” was removed from the mark for foreign goods.
8. 1949 Decree of the Ministry of Industry No. 71/1949 Coll. of 25 January 1949 unified the hallmarks across the whole of Czechoslovakia again. The third Czechoslovak marks set no new outlines but compiled the existing Czechoslovak and Slovak ones.
9. 1955 The 1928 Hallmarking Act was repealed and replaced by Legal Measure No. 2/1955 Coll. of the Presidium of the National Assembly. The follow-up decrees made expert supervision of the management of precious metals the priority.
10. 1962 Decree No. 93/1962 Coll. abolished the use of official marks on larger goods with effect from 1 October 1962 and introduced a silver fineness of 750/1000.
11. 1968 Decree No. 34/1968 Coll. of 22 February 1968 introduced a new gold fineness of 375/1000 and the corresponding hallmark.
12. 1989–1990 After 1989 the State Testing Institute for Precious Metals returned to its original name, the Assay Office.
13. 1992 Hallmarking Act No. 539/1992 Coll. was adopted on 4 November 1992 and came into force on 31 December 1992. Implementing Decree No. 540/1992 Coll. introduced a new mark for gold of 585/1000 and abolished the marks for gold of 375/1000, silver of 750/1000 and those for foreign and old goods; the mark for old goods below the lowest statutory fineness is entirely new.
14. 1993 After the federation split, the marks had to be distinguished between the Czech and Slovak offices and between their branches; the historically proven method of miniature letters was used. The hallmarking union between the Czech and Slovak Republics remains in place.
15. 1994 On 2 November 1994 the Czech Republic acceded to the Convention on the Control and Marking of Articles of Precious Metals, the Vienna Convention. Convention marks are therefore valid on Czech territory as well.
16. 2004 Amendment No. 127/2003 Coll. to the Hallmarking Act, effective from 1 January 2004, introduced a new statutory fineness of 999/1000 for gold, silver and platinum and responsibility marks for imported goods; the new marks were promulgated by Decree No. 363/2003 Coll.
17. 2004 With the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union on 1 May 2004, hallmarks of EU states that express the fineness of goods intelligibly and recognisably, equivalently to the Czech Hallmarking Act, became directly valid as well (Section 50(2)).

Validity of historical marks and the position of coins

Besides the current Czech marks, all hallmarks that were historically valid on Czechoslovak territory remain valid, provided they did not express a fineness lower than the lowest finenesses for the individual precious metals set by the Hallmarking Act. This covers the Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak, Protectorate and Slovak State marks.

Not valid are the marks introduced during the Second World War on Czechoslovak territory occupied by foreign states — the Austrian, Polish and Hungarian marks.

For the purposes of the Act, items of gold below 333/1000, silver below 500/1000 and platinum below 800/1000 are not treated as goods, nor are apparatus, instruments and other objects intended for technical, scientific, laboratory or teaching purposes, regardless of fineness (Section 3(2)). For old gold goods, 580/1000 is treated as the lowest statutory fineness (Section 5(2)).

In addition, Vienna Convention marks are valid on Czech territory, and after EU accession the hallmarks of certain member states were progressively recognised. As of the Assay Office text update of 6 January 2016 these were selected marks of Estonia, Finland, Croatia, Ireland, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.

Selected historical finenesses

Finenesses that no longer appear in the current set of valid marks but can be encountered on older goods.

Coins are not subject to assay control

Czech and foreign coins are not subject to assay control, not even where they form part of goods that are subject to such control and are loosely joined to them (Section 27(3) of the Hallmarking Act).

A gold or silver coin therefore does not carry, and need not carry, a hallmark. The absence of a hallmark on a coin is neither a defect nor an indication of a fake — a coin simply falls outside the assay-control regime.

Czech precious-metal coins issued under separate legislation nevertheless count as precious-metal products under the Act: the producer of Czech coins must submit samples from the striking to the Assay Office for verification of fineness and may not hand the striking over to the customer without the office's consent (Section 30). Their fineness is thus verified by a route other than a mark on the individual piece.

AUREA Numismatika registration

AUREA Numismatika, company ID 04447646, is registered with the Assay Office of the Czech Republic.

The Assay Office keeps a register of makers and traders; anyone has the right to inspect the part of it that is a public list, and the office publishes it in a manner allowing remote access (Section 42). List of registered persons on the Assay Office website

Go to the pictorial overview

Sources

All the information on this page comes from materials of the Assay Office of the Czech Republic and from the text of the Hallmarking Act. The symbols of individual marks are published by the office as images; its depiction is the authoritative one.

• Assay Office of the Czech Republic — Hallmarks — Retrieved 14 August 2026
• Assay Office of the Czech Republic — Identification (maker's and responsibility) marks — Retrieved 14 August 2026
• Assay Office of the Czech Republic — Office news: The development of Czech hallmarking — Retrieved 14 August 2026
• Assay Office of the Czech Republic — List of valid and a selection of invalid hallmarks in the territory of the Czech Republic, Prague 2017 (PDF) — Retrieved 14 August 2026
• Act No. 539/1992 Coll., on assaying and the testing of precious metals (Hallmarking Act), as amended — Sections 3, 4, 5, 8, 19, 20, 27, 28, 30, 42 and 50

Date of last expert review: 14 August 2026

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