Last Saturday I went to Canterbury for a bit of retail therapy. Of course, I just had to do the rounds of the charity shops, one of which produced this lovely brooch:

I saw that it was stamped with “925” on the back, and when I got it home I realised that it actually had a full British hallmark. However, the hallmark is very blurred – it’s basically two illegible blobs, followed by a lower case letter “e”. For all British assay offices, this corresponds to the year 2004.

If I wanted to sell this beauty on Etsy I wouldn’t be able to do so for another six years, because according to Etsy’s rules an item needs to be at least 20 years old before it can be classed as vintage. Ah well, it might have to join my own collection for a while then. It’s a hard life.