We were recently delighted to welcome the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Councillor Safiya Saeed, and her niece Hamda to Sheffield Assay Office for an engaging and insightful visit hosted by our Assay Master, Ashley Carson.
The visit began with a presentation exploring our story since our establishment in 1773, marking over 250 years of protecting consumers and supporting trade. The Lord Mayor gained a deeper understanding of the enduring role hallmarking plays in maintaining trust, integrity and quality — values that remain central to our work today.
Following the presentation, Councillor Safiya Saeed and Hamda toured the building, meeting members of our team across departments. In the Hallmarking Department, they saw the precision and expertise involved in examining and marking precious metal items, witnessing tradition upheld with modern efficiency.
Throughout the tour, our teams showcased the technology that underpins our services. The Lord Mayor saw our XRF spectrometer used for rapid, non-destructive compositional analysis and learned about our traditional fire assay furnaces, still regarded as the benchmark for precious metal testing.
The visit concluded in our Analytical Services laboratory, where members of the team demonstrated our ICP-OES instrumentation and explained how their work extends beyond precious metals into wider materials analysis, investigative testing and independent technical reporting for a range of industries.
The visit highlighted the important role Sheffield Assay Office continues to play within the city and far beyond it — combining heritage with advanced scientific capability. We were pleased to share the breadth of our work with Councillor Safiya Saeed and Hamda and to demonstrate how, more than 250 years on, the Assay Office remains a trusted and relevant institution at the heart of Sheffield’s civic and industrial landscape.
The Sheffield Assay Office was established in 1773, under an Act of Parliament and today the company assays and hallmarks the precious metals - silver,
gold, platinum and palladium. Sheffield Assay Office is one of only four UK assay offices who all work to uphold the Hallmarking Act of 1973 and
continue to ensure consumer protection for customers purchasing precious metals.
To find out more about the whole range of services offered by Sheffield Assay Office, such as our hallmarking and analytical services, please email us
at
info@assayoffice.co.uk
or complete the contact form on our website at
http://www.assayoffice.co.uk/contact-us
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