Assay Office Birmingham News

  During the week delegates have covered technical aspects of Gold Assaying by Fire Assay Method, precious metal analysis by XRF, testing of gold and other noble metals by touch acid techniques, Gold/Silver by scorification and finally, sampling and hallmarking On the final day of training Michael Allchin, Assay Master at The Birmingham Assay Office, presented the 3 trainees with certificates of attendance.

The Birmingham Assay Office was recently featured in the BBC 4programme ‘The Golden Age of Silver’ as part of the channel’s ‘Metalwork’s!’ series. Sally Hoban, Heritage& Training Officer was filmed explaining Hallmarking to TV historian Dan Cruickshank. You can watch the programme on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJuIypxKVN8

The Birmingham Assay Office took part in an exclusive event for readers of The Independent newspaper in June. ‘Hidden Treasures’ was a national campaign that aimed to open up heritage collections that are not well known to the public to readers of the newspaper. The group received a talk about the history of the Assay Office followed by a tour of the silver collection and library and were amazed at the number of rare and beautiful pieces in the collection.