# A Hallmark Can Be Genuine, Legal and About a Different Object > The V and A catalogues a Paul de Lamerie ewer of 1736 as a duty dodger, hallmarked 1944. Its marks were genuine, struck by the state, and cut out of something else. No test of the metal can find that. > The Study - 2026-09-26 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/the-hallmark-that-belongs-to-another-object/ ## Key points - The Victoria and Albert Museum gives one of its Paul de Lamerie ewers two dates in the same field: made 1736, hallmarked 1944-1945. The second date is there because the first set of marks had been cut out of a smaller object and soldered into this one. - A transposed mark defeats every test of the material. The silver is the right silver, the punch is the right punch and the date letter is the right date letter, because all of them are genuine. What is false is the relationship between the marks and the object under them. - The Goldsmiths' Company Assay Office's own guidance to the trade names the forms most often found carrying transposed marks: cups, tea and coffee wares, casters, bowls, mugs and tankards. Four of the five Lamerie objects in this archive are in that list. - A London hallmark of the 1730s is four punches doing four different legal jobs, and only one of them says anything about a person. The other three certify an alloy, a place of assay and a year. - Two centuries later the fraud runs the other way. In April 2024 the Goldsmiths' Company held a seminar at Goldsmiths' Hall on the recent increase in attempts to forge the maker's mark of Paul de Lamerie, with a session devoted to exactly that. - The body that rules on these cases decides whether marks are lawful, not who made the object. A clearance is not a certificate of authorship, and it has never claimed to be. ## A hallmark is a statement about a transaction, not about an object ## The V and A publishes one of its own Lamerie ewers as a duty dodger ## Sixpence an ounce, and a fraud the tax paid for ## Four punches, four different claims, and only one of them names anybody ## Tea and coffee wares are named in the trade's own list of vulnerable forms ## A body and a lid engraved with the same arms are checking each other ## The fraud running now is the opposite of the one that made the ewer ## The committee rules on marks, and it does not rule on hands ## What this means for the four Lamerie objects in this archive ## How to read a hallmark without over-reading it ## The genuine document is the one worth checking hardest ## Why this archive is free to read The Hardwicke ewer is the most useful object in this article because everything about it is true except the one thing a buyer would have relied on. The silver is silver of the period, the arms are the right arms, the patron is a real and documented man, the shop is the right shop and the punches were struck by the Assay Office on a real occasion. Only the join between the marks and the metal was a lie, and it took two hundred and eight years and a complaint to the Goldsmiths' Company to get it corrected on the object itself. An institution that publishes that, in the same field as the date, is doing the reader a service that a bare attribution never could. ## Questions **What is a duty dodger in English silver?** It is a piece on which hallmarks were cut out of a smaller, already assayed object and soldered in, so that the larger piece appeared to have been tested and to have paid the duty when it had not. The duty was sixpence per troy ounce from 1 June 1720 and was assessed by weight, so the saving grew with the size of the object. **Can a transposed hallmark be detected by scientific analysis of the metal?** Not on its own, because both the object and the transposed marks are usually genuine silver of the period. Detection is physical and contextual: whether the punches sit where that form of object was normally marked, whether there is excess solder around them suggesting a let in patch, whether the impression reads correctly on the reverse, and whether the punch outlines belong to the cycle the date letter claims. **Does a Goldsmiths' Hallmark Authentication Committee clearance prove who made an object?** No. The committee advises the London Assay Office on whether an article's marks are lawful, using the hallmark, examination of the object and scientific analysis of its metals, and it cancels marks it finds forged, counterfeit or transposed. It does not certify authorship, and it has never claimed to. **Why is Paul de Lamerie's mark forged so often?** Because it adds the most value of any English silver mark, and the Goldsmiths' Company said publicly in April 2024 that attempts to forge it had recently increased. The Company held a seminar at Goldsmiths' Hall on 12 April 2024 with a session devoted specifically to fake marks of Paul de Lamerie. **Is it legal to remove a forged or transposed hallmark from an object?** Only with the written consent of an assay office. Section 5 of the Hallmarking Act 1973 makes it an offence for any person to remove, alter or deface any mark struck on an article otherwise, which is why corrections such as the 1944 re-marking of the Victoria and Albert Museum's Lamerie ewer are documented events rather than private repairs. ## Sources - [1] Victoria and Albert Museum, online collections catalogue, entry for Ewer, Paul de Lamerie, museum number M.16-1954. Read 26 September 2026. Primary source for the date field reading made 1736 and hallmarked 1944-1945, for the silver gilt medium, the height of 15.75 inches, the width of 13 inches and the weight of 3.66 kg, for the cast coat of arms of Philip Yorke, Baron Hardwicke impaling Margaret Cocks, for the museum's own description of the object as a duty dodger and its explanation of the mechanism, and for the statement that in 1944 the transposed marks were removed and the ewer was re-marked by the Goldsmiths' Company after complaint. - [2] The Goldsmiths' Company, company news, Marks of deception: tackling fakes and forgeries in antique British silver, seminar held at Goldsmiths' Hall on Friday 12 April 2024, 10:00 to 16:30. Read 26 September 2026. Primary source for the Company's own statement about the recent increase in attempts to forge the maker's mark of Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751), for the programme and speakers including Peter Cameron on the fake marks of Paul de Lamerie, and for the Company's description of what the Goldsmiths' Hallmark Authentication Committee does. - [3] Hallmarking Act 1973, section 5, Alterations to hallmarked articles, on legislation.gov.uk. Read 26 September 2026. Primary source for section 5(2), that it is an offence for any person to remove, alter or deface any mark struck on an article except in accordance with the written consent of an assay office. - [4] Association of Small Collectors of Antique Silver (ASCAS), The background to duty dodgers. Read 26 September 2026. Secondary source, used for the statutory title An Act for laying a duty on wrought plate, the rate of sixpence per troy ounce in force from 1 June 1720, the penalty of a five hundred pound fine or later transportation, the Plate Offences Act of 1739 and the introduction of punch designs with indented outlines used from 18 July 1739 to the end of the 1755 marking year on 27 May 1756. - [5] Cleveland Museum of Art, online collection entry for Tea Caddy, Paul Jacques de Lamerie, accession 1943.179. Read 26 September 2026. Primary source for the date of 1741-42, the silver gilt medium, the overall dimensions of 13.4 by 9.6 by 5.8 cm, the credit line The Thomas S. Grasselli Memorial Collection, the location in gallery 203A British Painting and Decorative Arts, and the museum's Open Access release of the images. The museum publishes no punch by punch reading and no hallmark detail on this page.