Silver is a considerable investment. When you buy it you want to be sure that it is of the best quality, good enough to last not only through your lifetime but also your children's.

Our silver is made in Sheffield, England by silversmiths working to the highest standards of traditional craftsmanship. Silver has been made in Sheffield for hundreds of years and has been one of the city's leading industries since the late nineteenth century.

All our silver is hand set and hand finished by individual silversmiths and it is this, together with the weight of the silver in each piece, that defines the quality.

The silver is hand polished to ensure no loss of crispness as can happen when machine polishing is relied upon.

At The Silver Company, nearly all our sterling silver is of 'sterling standard', i.e. 92.5% pure silver (alloyed for strength with a small proportion of copper). The standard is guaranteed, as all English silver must be, by the hallmark or stamp that each piece carries.

Some items carry the Britannia silver standard was first introduced into England in March 1697, to prevent silversmiths from using the coinage for manufacturing wrought plate. At the time, coins were made of sterling silver. Frequently, the price of silver was higher than the normal value of the coin, so many coins were hoarded, or else melted down and their edges clipped for making plate, with the result that England was running out of small change! The solution adopted was to raise the standard of silver from 92.5% to 95.8%. This new standard was in force until 1720, when the sterling standard was reintroduced alongside Britannia. It had many supporters, primarily because it was much cleaner and whiter, it 'wore' better than sterling, and it was easier to work with because it was softer. In fact, Paul de Lamerie continued to use the standard twelve years after sterling was reintroduced.

The testing and hallmarking is carried out by the Assay Office; an example set of hallmarks can be seen in the photograph above showing the maker's mark, the Assay Office mark (here a rose symbolising Sheffield), a lion (guaranteeing 92.5% silver purity), and the date letter (year of manufacture).