Precious Metals Control Act December 1880
Swiss official hallmarks for watch cases from 1880 to 1933
Precious Metals Control Act December 1880
The Swiss Precious Metals Control Act of 23 December 1880 introduced a uniform system of hallmarking for watch cases to be used throughout Switzerland with the marks shown in the picture here. These hallmarks marks are seen on the vast majority of Swiss watches with silver or gold cases imported to the UK between 1880 and 1907. The small "x" in each mark is replaced by the identifier of the assay office where the item was tested and marked; "G" for Geneva, "N" for Neuchâtel, "C" for La Chaux-de-Fonds, etc.
Swiss hallmarks do not indicate dates. Items marked with the symbols introduced in 1880 must obviously have been marked after that date. These hallmarks are seen on the vast majority of Swiss watches with silver or gold cases imported to the UK between 1880 and 1907. As discussed above, from 1 June 1907 these Swiss marks are very rarely seen on imported watches and UK import hallmarks appear instead.
The table reproduced here uses the "per mil" or parts per thousand symbol ‰. It is like a percentage sign % but with two zeros below the line indicating that the ratio is per thousand, rather than per hundred used for percentages.
Between 1880 and 1933 the Swiss hallmarks for silver were either a "bear rampant", a bear standing on its hind legs, or a grouse. The bear mark indicates that the metal contains at least 0.875 or 87.5% pure silver, and the grouse that the metal contains at least 0.800 or 80% pure silver, the balance being an alloying element, usually copper, that gave the alloy greater strength and wearing ability.
Swiss 900 silver
900 silver
Sometimes a standard of fineness of 900‰ or 0.900 is seen. This was never introduced into Swiss law as a standard, but 900 fineness silver was a popular grade because it was the standard of coin silver in a number of European and other countries. The precious metals act of 1880 specified for silver the higher standard of fineness of 875‰ and higher. There was nothing to stop manufacturers making watch cases from 900‰ silver, stamping them "900" as shown in the picture here, and submitting them for assay and hallmarking. The "bear" was used for silver 875‰ and higher, independent the actual fineness, so this mark was applied to the item as shown in the picture — the faint mark above the 900 is the bear. The bear did not guarantee that the item was 900‰, only that it was at least 875‰.
For the origins of the grade of .935 for Swiss silver, see the section below about the three bears.
The three bears and 935 silver
Neither of the standards of purity defined for silver in the Swiss Precious Metals Control Act of 1880 (0.800 and 0.875) met the UK minimum standard of sterling silver, 0.925 or 92.5% silver content, so items with these levels of silver content in the metal could not be hallmarked, or legally sold, in Britain.
Before 1880 the vast majority of Swiss watches sold in Britain were imported without any assay or hallmarking at all. After 1880, when the Swiss introduced their own hallmarking process, Swiss watches were assayed and hallmarked in Switzerland, but to the lower Swiss standards of 0.800 or 0.875, not sterling. This was not legal, but no one in Britain or Switzerland realised at the time. A small proportion of Swiss watch cases were assayed in England and marked with British hallmarks between 1874 and 1888, and a higher grade of silver was used for these cases to meet the British sterling silver standard.
Silver 0.935 Watch Case with three Swiss bears
The British Merchandise Marks Act of 1888 introduced new requirements for imported gold and silver watches. From 1 January 1888 they all had to be hallmarked, either in a British assay office or in their country of origin. The Act also defined new styles of hallmarks to be struck by UK assay offices on imported gold and silver watches. As a result of this the customs authorities stopped allowing into the UK Swiss watches with silver cases of either the 0.800 or 0.875 standard. As a consequence of this, a higher standard for silver of 0.935 was adopted in Switzerland to comply with the British legal minimum of sterling silver.
This was discussed at a Swiss Federal Council meeting and is recorded in a decree dated 24 December 1887. It is apparent from that document that the Swiss authorities thought that sterling silver was actually 0.935, which explains why this standard, higher than necessary to meet British standards, was adopted. The reason for assuming this is not explained, but the mark of sterling is the lion passant, the walking lion with raised right forepaw; the widely recognised mark of sterling silver since 1544 which doesn't reveal the exact analysis of sterling silver. A Swiss clerk tasked with the job of framing the new standard might have decided to simply get hold of a piece of sterling silver and have it tested. An alloy that was on average slightly above standard was often used to make sure that the work passed the assay, because items below standard were "battered" and the workmanship was lost, and when the selected piece of sterling silver was tested in Switzerland it assayed at 0.935, hence the mistake.
To confirm that a watch case had assayed at 0.935 or better, another mark was needed to distinguish it from the 0.875 indicated by a single bear. It was decreed by the Swiss authorities that a set of marks showing the fineness of 0.935 in a rectangle and accompanied three bears, one small bear above two large bears, as shown in the picture, were to be used. The bows of watches were stamped with two bears, as shown by the red arrows in the picture here. Another bear was stamped on the pendant as shown by the single third arrow.
Silver 0.935 bow with two bears and pendant with a bear
The mark of the three bears was not universally appreciated. Customers in the United States (for one) preferred to see one bear rather than three. Because of this, watch cases of 0.935 silver that were submitted to the Bureaux de Contrôle (assay offices) in packets identified with "Destinée à l'Angleterre" were stamped with three bears; without this identification they were stamped with a single bear. The manufacturers could therefore choose whether to have three bears or just one bear stamped on 0.935 silver watch cases by marking the packets "Destinée à l'Angleterre" if they wanted three bears, or omitting this if they wanted a single bear.
The distinction of the three bears for 0.935 silver was something stipulated by the Swiss authorities, because previously the mark of a single bear had not been accompanied by the numerical fineness of 0.875. The British customs authorities were not too bothered about the number of bears; so long as silver watch cases were stamped 0.935 and had either one bear or three, they were happy and let the goods pass.
The use of 0.935 silver and the three bears marks was discussed in La FédérationHorlogère Suisse in October 1890, after a suggestion by the authorities that the practice should be discontinued and that watch cases be marked with 0.935 and a single bear. The watch manufacturers were strongly of the view that it was necessary to continue with it for watches that were to be exported to England, because English customers had come to recognise and appreciate the mark of the three bears. The mark of the three bears therefore continued to be an available option as before.
From 1 June 1907 a British law originally passed in 1842 was correctly implemented, and from then on all imported Swiss watches were assayed in Britain and marked the new British import hallmarks, and after this date they very rarely also have Swiss hallmarks; there was little point in getting them assayed and hallmarked twice, although there was not a sharp cut off and watches are seen with both Swiss and British import hallmarks. There was no reason, apart from cost, that a watch should not be hallmarked in both Switzerland and Britain, and sometimes no doubt it was expedient, say if a watch had already been hallmarked in Switzerland before 1907, or was originally intended for another market and then an urgent order caused it to be sent to Britain.
Marking of the three bears by the Swiss bureaux de contôle, which was specifically for the British market, probably stopped after 1 June 1907 when all imported watches were compulsorily assayed and hallmarked in Britain. It was probably at this time when the Swiss authorities also realised that the sterling standard was 0.925 and not 0.935, the British hallmarks for imported watches using the decimal ".925" in an oval making this abundantly clear to all for the first time. The traditional standard mark of the lion passant continued to be used on native British items.