A definitive guide
French Hallmarks
Published on March 15, 2024
After the beautiful first volume of French Regional Jewellery, a new book by Michael Fieggen has appeared that is sure to fill a gap in your library! French hallmarks, in detail, with just about everything you’d want to know.
French hallmarks: a practical book
For this book, let’s start at the very end of it: with the indexes. On the last pages you will find indexes of hallmarks, described visually: bees, amphoras, crabs, sphinxes, bulls….even if you have not read a single line in the book, it is immediately of very practical use. Look at the hallmark, identify the shape you see, look it up in the index.
There’s even a chapter with advice on magnifying glasses you’ll need to see the hallmarks: how to buy one, how to use one, and how to properly look at a piece of jewellery. And that’s just the end of the book: there is, of course, so much more!
French hallmarks: a completely new study
This is a book born out of one those ideas that seemed like a really good plan when you first thought of them, and that turn out to lead you straight into another rabbit hole of research. While working on his first book on regional jewellery (see more about it here), the author thought it would be useful to include an overview of hallmarks on jewellery.
When he started looking into them, he soon found that listing an overview of hallmarks was way more complicated than previously thought. Contradicting sources, no sources, erroneously copied marks that continued to be reproduced….there was a lot to tackle. And so, starting from scratch all over again, it took another two years to complete this book.
The result is a study which offers a very detailed overview of platinum, gold and silver hallmarks. It includes hallmarks that have never been published before, and shows a detailed history of hallmarks as they vary over time and per region.
French hallmarks and ethnic jewellery
For jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, I rely on the formidable book World Hallmarks Vol. II by the Hallmark Research Institute. From 1859 to 1967, Algeria used the same hallmarks as those in France – that was because France regarded colonized Algeria as an integral part of their country. The only way to see if a piece of jewellery has been hallmarked in Algeria, is through the mark of the assay office.
The new book by Michael Fieggen includes all those assay offices, not just for Algeria (those are in the World Hallmarks book, too) but also for other regions that were once part of France. Like my own country, The Netherlands: there have been several assay offices located throughout The Netherlands in the early 1800’s.
With the wealth of information in this book, I will be able to date French-marked jewellery all the more precise!
French Hallmarks: a book you’ll need
This book is very well illustrated with clear drawings, schematics and close-up photos. I always find that very helpful, as a stamped mark may look just a little different from the drawing, and seeing them side by side helps in determining what I’m looking at.
It also contains schematics of the placement of hallmarks on different types of jewellery (so you’ll know where to look for it). There is detailed information on import marks, export marks, counterstamps, methods to test for silver and gold content, a bibliography, and a glossary.
And what I really liked, are the small sections with a single anecdote dispersed throughout the book: little bits of additional info that help to understand the hallmarks in their context.
The hardcopy of the book is in French, as you see above in the photo, but for foreign orders an English pdf is available: check the website for more details.
If you are working with French hallmarked jewellery in any capacity, you will greatly benefit from this book!
More about French Hallmarks
Les poinçons français des métaux précieux, de 1789 á ce jour.
By Michael C.W. Fieggen (2024). 190 pages, full-colour, available in French (hardcopy) and English (pdf). Published by Michael Fieggen.
Available with the author via this link
The book was gifted as review copy by the author.
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S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].
Sigrid van Roode
Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only.