Hi,

I am currently living in Dubai, but will probably soon be returning to the UK soon. I sell a lot of my work on ETSY, and 99% of my designs are cast from originals made by me.

My questions are,

1. What is the going rate for silver casting in the UK (I will be moving back to Brighton, East Sussex) ?

2. What happens re hall marks, e.g. are the castings sent back to me, for me to then send off to have hallmarked - which I would prefer as 90% of my work is sold outside of the UK (so I am assuming I would not need to have this hallmarked and I could keep my costs down). Or does all cast silver get sent to assay office before it's returned to me

3. How much does it cost to have your silver hallmarked ?

Some background info ....

Here in Dubai I pay a charge to make a mould of my work which is around 5 - 10 pounds (per mould).

Then I pay 50p per gram casting charge. This include the cost of making the wax, and the whole casting process. (but no finishing - that is all done by me)

I buy 1KG of silver at the market rate, and the caster then mixes this with the appropriate ratio of copper (of which I pay market rate for as well) in order to create the casting grain (this process is all included in my 50p per gram casting charge.

Warm Regards Paul Townsend