Gold & Silver Hallmarks and Stamps Explained

Victor Osei

Numismatics specialist; 25 years collecting, grading, and authenticating coins and bullion.

Published Jun 2026 · Last reviewed Jun 18, 2026

Every fineness stamp answers one question: how much of this is actually precious metal? That single figure sets what the piece is worth as raw material, before any premium, design, or brand. The hard part is not the common numbers — those are fixed standards anyone can memorize — but telling a solid mark from a plating mark that looks almost identical. Below are the standards for gold, silver, and platinum, the country marks you may see alongside them, and the abbreviations that signal an item is mostly base metal.

What a fineness stamp actually means

Fineness is purity expressed in parts per thousand. A 585 stamp means 585 of every 1,000 parts are gold — 58.5% — with the rest made up of alloy metals like copper, silver, or zinc that add hardness and color. The older karat system says the same thing out of 24: pure gold is 24 karat, and 14k is 14 parts gold in 24, which works out to that same 58.5%. Both systems describe the identical metal; you will see fineness (three digits) on most modern and European pieces and karat (a number followed by “k” or “kt”) on older and American jewelry. To value an item, you need its purity and its weight, then you run both against the current price. See fineness and karat for the definitions, and the melt value calculator to turn a stamp and a weight into a dollar figure.

Gold hallmarks and what they mean

Gold marks span a wide purity range, and the spread matters: a 14k piece holds less than two-thirds the gold of an 18k piece of the same weight. These are the standards you will encounter most.

• 999 / 9999 — 24k, 99.9% (or 99.99%) pure. Investment-grade bullion: coins and bars. Too soft for everyday jewelry.
• 916 / 917 — 22k, 91.6% pure. Common in bullion coins like the Krugerrand and in traditional Asian and Middle Eastern jewelry.
• 750 — 18k, 75% pure. The premium standard for fine jewelry.
• 585 / 583 — 14k, 58.5% pure. The most common gold jewelry standard in the United States. (583 is an older European figure for the same nominal grade.)
• 417 — 10k, 41.7% pure. The legal minimum to be sold as “gold” in the U.S.
• 375 — 9k, 37.5% pure. Common in the UK and Commonwealth countries; not recognized as gold for sale in the U.S.
• 333 — 8k, 33.3% pure. A low-grade European standard, mostly older German jewelry. Only a third gold.

Silver hallmarks and what they mean

Silver uses the same parts-per-thousand system, and the grades cluster close together near the top.

• 999 — fine silver, 99.9% pure. Bullion coins and bars.
• 958 — Britannia silver, 95.8% pure. A British standard, used in modern Britannia coins. See Britannia.
• 925 — sterling silver, 92.5% pure. The dominant standard for flatware, hollowware, and jewelry.
• 900 — “coin” silver, 90% pure. The composition of pre-1965 U.S. dimes, quarters, and half dollars, commonly called junk silver.
• 800 / 835 — lower-grade European silver, 80% and 83.5% pure. Common in older Continental flatware and serving pieces.

Platinum hallmarks

Platinum is usually marked 950 (95% pure) or 900 (90% pure), sometimes written “PLAT,” “PT950,” or “PT900.” It is denser than gold, so a small platinum item can weigh more — and be worth more — than it looks. Palladium pieces are marked similarly, often “PD950.” For how these metals price relative to gold and silver, see platinum and palladium.

The marks that warn you it is not solid

This is where sellers lose money. Several common stamps look like purity marks but actually tell you the item is plated or filled — a microscopic layer of gold bonded to a base-metal core. The melt value of the gold layer is usually a few cents to a couple of dollars, not a percentage of the item’s weight. Watch for these:

• GF — gold-filled. A bonded layer of gold, thicker than plating but still a tiny fraction of the weight. Marks read like “1/20 12K GF,” meaning 1/20 of the item’s weight is 12k gold.
• GP / GEP — gold-plated / gold electroplate. A thin electroplated coat. Negligible melt value.
• HGE — heavy gold electroplate. Despite “heavy,” still plating. Negligible melt value.
• RGP — rolled gold plate. A mechanically bonded layer, thinner than gold-filled. Negligible melt value.
• “925 plated” or “925 GP” — a sterling-silver base with a gold-colored plating. Worth its silver content, not its gold color.

The pattern to remember: a clean three-digit number or a plain karat mark (585, 14k) points to solid metal, while any letters added after the number — GF, GP, GEP, HGE, RGP — point to plating or fill. When in doubt, weigh nothing and test first.

Country marks and unstamped items

Alongside the fineness number you may find a maker’s mark, an assay-office symbol, or a national stamp — a British leopard’s head, a French eagle’s head, an Italian numeric mint code. These confirm where a piece was tested and by whom, and they support authenticity, but the fineness figure is what governs melt value. An item with no stamp at all is not necessarily fake or base metal; older, handmade, and many imported pieces were never marked. It simply means the purity is unverified, and you should test it — with an acid kit, an electronic tester, or a jeweler — before assuming any value. See how to authenticate gold and silver for the testing methods and their limits.

Fineness and karat at a glance

Use this table to translate any common stamp into its purity and metal. Match the number on your piece to the row, confirm the metal, then take the purity percentage into the melt-value math.

From stamp to value

The stamp is the first step, not the answer. Once you have confirmed purity, the value of solid metal follows directly from weight and the live price — there is no design or brand premium when you are selling for melt. A 14k chain weighing 20 grams contains roughly 11.7 grams of pure gold (58.5% of 20), and that figure, times the current price per gram, is the floor under any honest offer. Run your own number before you talk to a buyer: see what 14k gold is worth for a worked example, the melt value calculator to price your exact piece, and selling gold jewelry for what to expect once design and dealer margin enter the picture.

The bottom line

Read the full stamp before you do anything else. A clean three-digit fineness number or a plain karat mark tells you the purity, and purity times weight is the melt value. Letters tacked on after the number — GF, GP, GEP, HGE, RGP — warn you the piece is plated or filled and worth little as metal. An unstamped item is not worthless, but its purity is unverified and should be tested. Know the number, confirm it is solid, then price it.

Selling & valuing gold & silver