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The Company are allowed 1 per cent., and the fees for stamping are paid into the Inland Revenue Office. At Goldsmiths' Hall, in the years 1850 to 1863 inclusive, there were assayed and marked 85 22-carat watch-cases, 316,347 18-carat, 493 15-carat, 1550 12-carat, 448 9-carat, making a total of 318,923 cases, weighing 467,250 ounces 6 dwts. 18 grains. The Goldsmiths' Company append a note to this return, stating that they have no knowledge of the value of the cases assayed, except of the intrinsic value, as indicated by the weight and quality of the gold given in the return. The silver watch-cases assayed at the same establishment in the fourteen years, 1,139,704, the total weight being 2,302,192 ounces 19 dwts. In the year 1857 the largest number of cases were assayed out of the fourteen. The precise number in that year was 106,860, this being more than 10,000 above any year in the period named. In a subsequent year the number was only 77,608. A similar note with regard to value is appended to the return of silver cases as to the gold.
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Touchstone for Goldsmith's Wares, observes,
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That goldsmiths in the City and liberties, as to their particular trade, are under the Goldsmiths' Company's control, whether members or not, and ought to be of _their own company_, though, from mistake or design, many of them are free of others. For the wardens, being by their charters and the statutes appointed to survey, assay, and mark the silver-work, are to be chosen from members, such choice must sometimes fall upon them that are either of other trades, or not skilled in their curious art of making assays of gold and silver, and consequently unable to make a true report of the goodness thereof; or else the necessary attendance thereon is too great a burden for the wardens. Therefore they (the wardens) have appointed an _assay master_, called by them their deputy warden, allowing him a considerable yearly salary, and who takes an oath for the due performance of his office. They have large steel puncheons and marks of different sizes, with the leopard's-head, crowned; the _lion_, and a certain _letter_, which letter they change alphabetically every year, in order to know the year any particular work was assayed or marked, as well as the markers. These marks, he adds,
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To acquaint the public the better with this business of the assay, the writer of the
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Touchstone