Montre Blingdo
One of the earliest means of controlling precious metals is to stamp them so that the content of precious metals can be known at a glance and the manufacturer can be easily and conveniently identified. Let’s take a look at these marks
The origin of the marks
France began to print marks on gold as early as the end of the 13th century. Later, the French government stipulated that each trade union organization must design its own mark that is different from other trade union organizations, and then send it for inspection to prove the quality of precious metals. After the inspection, another mark is stamped. In this way, the responsibilities of all parties are clarified and the rights and interests of consumers are protected.
This method is specifically to distinguish by different English letters, starting from A and changing in sequence every year. Because the letters J, V, and W are not used, a set of English letters in different fonts is replaced every 23 years, including bold, regular, handwritten, cursive, and other different forms of English letters. Based on these English letters in different fonts, you can know which year the inspection was sent.
Swiss Seal
Switzerland began to use seals in the mid-18th century. The seals on Swiss watches are not used to verify the year, but are only a guarantee of the purity of precious metals.
The most common Swiss goddess of the country is a side profile portrait of a human head, representing 18K gold (0.750), while 14K gold (0.585) is marked with a squirrel.
For those imported from abroad, they are marked with a lynx head (also known as a caracal head). A “1” is punched between the two ears of the lynx head for 18K gold, and a “2” is punched for 14K gold. 10K (0.417) and 9K (0.375) are marked with a pattern that looks like a sword on the outside and a flower on the inside.
Silver is marked with different animals according to its purity. 0.935 is marked with a lion, 0.925 (grained silver, the most common 925, generally called pure silver) is marked with a wild duck, et 0.800 is marked with a turkey.
The most common platinum is Pt950 (0.950, Pt900 and Pt850, which are often used in jewelry and rarely used in watches), with a goat head (commonly known as an antelope head) as the mark.
Material scale mark
The three common precious metals related to watches are gold, silver and platinum. The current rules are that the mark frames of these three precious metals are different. Adding purity to the above shape forms a complete mark.
The number in the middle of the “hammer” mark indicates the production information of the precious metal piece, generally referring to a certain region.
Modern mark
When Switzerland revised the precious metal mark regulations in 1995, it stipulated that the profile of the national dog Saint Bernard would be used as the only mark for precious metal products produced in Switzerland, and the material would be indicated by the internationally unified scale mark shape and the color would be indicated by numbers and words.