Pd950 Stamp — The Hallmark Indicating 95 Per Cent Palladium
Pd950 Stamp — The Hallmark Indicating 95 Per Cent Palladium
What the four-part UK hallmark for Pd950 looks like and how to verify it
The Pd950 stamp is the hallmark indicating that a piece of jewellery is made from 950 parts per thousand pure palladium — the standard fineness for fine palladium jewellery and the British hallmarking equivalent of the Pt950 stamp on platinum. The mark consists of multiple components struck side by side or in a small array on a discrete location of the article, typically the inner shank of a ring, the back of a brooch, or the inside of a bracelet clasp. Recognising the stamp and its components is the first verification step for buyers of palladium jewellery.
Components of the Pd950 hallmark
A complete UK Pd950 hallmark contains four mandatory marks struck by one of the four British assay offices: the sponsor's mark (the registered mark of the manufacturer or importer who submitted the article for assay), the fineness mark (the numeric figure 950), the palladium symbol (three overlapping ellipses, often displayed as ovals or shield-shaped lozenges), and the assay office mark (the leopard's head for London, the anchor for Birmingham, the Yorkshire rose or crown for Sheffield, and the castle for Edinburgh). A date letter is included as a fifth optional component, indicating the year of assay; the date letters cycle through a defined alphabet with each assay office maintaining its own sequence.
An additional variant marking — Pd950 or 950Pd — is sometimes struck alongside the formal hallmark, particularly on imported pieces or on contemporary trade items. This variant marking is not a substitute for the formal assay-office hallmark; it is a supplementary indication of metal type and fineness used principally in wholesale and trade circulation. Articles intended for retail sale in the UK above the one-gram threshold must carry the formal hallmark to comply with the Hallmarking Act 1973 as amended.
When the stamp is required
The threshold for compulsory hallmarking of palladium articles in the UK was set in 2009 at one gram of metal weight. Articles below the threshold may be sold described as palladium without an assay-office hallmark, although manufacturers commonly stamp such items with the variant Pd950 mark for the buyer's information. Articles above the threshold cannot lawfully be described or sold as palladium without the formal hallmark.
Verification
Visual inspection of the stamp under a 10x loupe is the standard verification method. The components should be crisp, struck cleanly into the metal, and consistent with the size and date conventions of the issuing assay office. Discrepancies — for example, a fineness mark of 950 alongside an unrecognised symbol, or a sponsor's mark that does not appear in the published register — should prompt further investigation. The Goldsmiths' Company maintains a register of sponsor marks and an online verification tool. XRF analysis at any reputable laboratory confirms the underlying composition where the stamp is unclear or in dispute.
In the trade
For buyers and resellers of palladium jewellery, the Pd950 stamp is the load-bearing certification of metal fineness. Trade practice treats hallmarked articles as definitively Pd950 absent contradicting laboratory analysis. Articles bearing only the supplementary Pd950 mark without an assay-office hallmark should be treated as undocumented and subject to verification before any significant transaction.