The National Association of Jewellers (NAJ) has proposed plans to launch a ‘Made in Britain’ mark, what they say, is an initiative to drive jewellery sales.
Hallmarking item made of gold and silver is a common practice and has been since around 1300. It is currently undertaken by the 4 British assay offices in Birmingham, Sheffield, Edinburgh and London.
The 4 British Assay Hallmarks In use today.
However, this practice of Hallmarking is an effort to determine the metal content of the product rather than, as many believe, a verification of where the product was made.
The NAJ hope that a ‘Made in Britain’ mark will not only help to boost sales to overseas markets, but it will also provide provenance to jewellery pieces in the future.
If the plans go ahead, the mark will be owned by the NAJ and then licenced to its members at which point they will have an entitlement to utelise the stamp. There are, as yet, no suggestions of how the final mark might look.
The project is currently in the early stages of development, with the NAJ currently researching regulatory restrictions and feasibility of the mark. Mush will also depend on the markets appetite for such a service and their ability to see the potential it could offer in boosted sales.
In our opinion, for what it is worth, any effort to clearly mark goods as made in Britain can only been a good thing.
A very good idea but why stop at Jewellery.
The issue is that there a number of organisations trying to promote one central ‘Made in Britain’ marque but they each want control and reap the benefits (financial, status, qudos, self promotion ect..) that might come with that. They are all unwilling to share. We had a good crack at mobilising a number of these groups together but it ultimatly suffered from infighting and has since resulted in a relativly lack-lustre and impotent version of what it could/should have been.
In short, I do not see a senario where one single administration would work as the cooperation is not there. The next best thing is that each industry managages thier own adminstration for the good of its members. So, I think that this could be a good move for the jewellery industry.