Pewter marks (touchmarks)

How to read it

The Pewter Society calls a touch mark a pewterer’s trade mark, which often includes the pewterer’s name or initials. In London and Edinburgh pewterers had to record their touches on special plates, so the names behind most of those marks are known; elsewhere they did not, and even in London many pewterers used touches that differed from the ones they had recorded, so thousands of marks are still unattributed. H. J. L. J. Massé, writing in 1921 from the Pewterers’ Company records published by Charles Welch, says formal registration may go back to an Act of 1503–4 (19 Henry VII c. 6), and that a table of pewter with every man’s mark on it existed by 1540. The earliest touch on the surviving plates dates from 1644. The V&A’s pewter tankards of about 1689–94 show how a touch is read: they are struck RS, and the museum names two London pewterers who recorded touches at Pewterers’ Hall with those initials, Robert Seare in 1669 and Rowland Steward in 1694.

Also searched as: crowned rose pewter, modern pewter marks, pewter marks, pewter touchmarks, touch mark.

A date in the mark

The Pewter Society points out that a date in a touch is the year the pewterer set up in business, not the year the piece was made. By the nineteenth century, it adds, many touches had become a simple name stamp.

The crowned rose

Massé records that the London company allowed the rose and crown only by its express permission, and that in 1671 it was described as a mark to be used only for goods exported. Orders of the 1690s let members strike it beside their own touch, with the word London. The mark was not only English: Massé found a rose and crown on Scottish, Flemish, Dutch, French and German pewter, and cites Bapst for its use as the mark of second-quality pewter at Mons.

The letter X

The same orders reserved the letter X for “extraordinary ware, commonly called hard metal ware”. Massé also quotes makers’ own quality claims on their punches, such as Samuel Smith’s “Good mettle made in London” of 1727.

Marks that look like silver hallmarks

Up to 1635, Massé writes, many pewterers struck close imitations of the Goldsmiths’ Company’s hallmarks, and the Goldsmiths complained to the Privy Council. The Silver Society notes that polished pewter can look much like silver and that pewterers often struck imitation silver marks. These small marks are the pewterer’s own, not an assay office’s.

What pewter means on a new piece

In the US, the FTC’s jewelry guides cover all articles made of pewter and say a product may be marked pewter if it is at least 900 parts per 1,000 Grade A tin, the rest being metals suitable for pewter. Britannica gives modern pewter as about 91 percent tin, 7.5 percent antimony and 1.5 percent copper, with no lead.

Pewter or Britannia metal?

Britannia metal is also a tin alloy, 92 to 97 percent tin with a little antimony and copper according to the V&A, and was the usual base for EPBM plate; see EP, EPBM and other electroplate marks.