Fake silver with genuine marks

[AG2012]

This is what I suspected and finally it emerged openly sold:
``Garrard & Co Ltd Antique Makers Mark Stamp Silversmiths Jewelers Vintage Punch``
If this happens with a reputable UK maker’s punch, we can only imagine what happened to punches in other countries during wars and revolutions.
I know several assay offices in Europe with old punches missing.
In short; there is fake silver with genuine marks.
Is there any legislation in UK abainst this?
Regards

[agphile]

This punch is not the sponsor’s mark that would need to be struck on silver before assay and the addition of hallmarks proper, of course. It is more akin to a retailer's mark. Punches like this could have been held in the workshops of makers to whom Garrard outsourced manufacture as well as by Garrard itself and might have “escaped” when such a workshop closed down. It would be illegal to use the punch in order to pass an item off as coming from Garrards but I doubt whether it is illegal to own the punch unless it was proved to be dishonestly acquired.

For a fake piece of British silver you would need the assay office marks as well as the sponsor's mark. Forgeries exist, usually of earlier marks, but I am not aware that genuine assay office punches have ever got into the wrong hands. However, in troubled times it may well be that official punches elsewhere have gone astray and are now avilable to be misused..