For UK collectors: reading a silver hallmark from your phone
If you are looking for a hallmark identifier app you can use in the UK, in a saleroom or a church hall with a queue behind you, this is the page for it. Patina is built to take a photo of the marks and return a maker, an era and an origin in plain English, with a confidence level attached and no price anywhere on the screen.
Patina is not open yet, so anything on this page about what it does is what it is being built to do.
The marks are right there, and you still cannot read them
Ten past nine on a Saturday, a hall in a village you had to look up on the way, and you are holding a small cream jug with four punches struck under the handle. You know the anatomy of a British mark: standard mark, town mark, date letter, maker's initials. That is not the problem. The problem is that this set has been polished shallow by a century of someone's Sunday routine, the light in the hall is the colour of weak tea, and the loupe in your coat pocket gets you as far as "that might be a lion" before the person behind you clears their throat. So you photograph the base, decide on instinct, and look it up properly at home, hours after the jug has gone to whoever was less hesitant than you.
What collectors say when they get stuck
- "I can't find this hallmark anywhere."
- "Google Lens was no help, it just shows me modern reproductions."
- "Is it actually antique or just old?"
- "Reproduction or period?"
- "I only had a few minutes to decide."
Those are five ways of describing one situation. The reference books are on the shelf at home. The hallmark charts online are excellent once you can already read the punch, which is precisely the thing you cannot do. A general image search is trained on the whole internet, so it keeps offering you the bright new thing that looks a bit like the old thing. And an appraisal is the right answer for one object in twenty, not for the cream jug you are deciding about in the next ninety seconds.
Patina is being built for that ninety seconds. It is a second opinion held up against your own knowledge, not a verdict handed down over it, and it is deliberately narrow: identification is the job, valuation is somebody else's.
How a hallmark scan is meant to go
- Get the punches in frame with your phone camera
Patina runs in a mobile browser and opens your camera to take the photo, so there is no app store detour while you are standing in a hall. Fill the frame with the marks rather than the whole object, and take the shot at a slight angle if the silver is throwing glare back at you. Being honest about the current build: capture is camera-only today, so a photo already sitting in your gallery from last weekend is not yet something you can feed in.
- The photo goes to a vision model
Patina sends the image to a multimodal vision model, which is asked for four things and only four things: maker, era, origin and how confident it is in what it just said. The model provider is Anthropic, and the scan happens server-side rather than on your handset. One caveat we would rather state than bury: this identification flow is newly built and we have not yet verified it end to end on the deployed app, which is part of why there is a waitlist here instead of a sign-up form.
- Read the result in plain English
The result screen is written as a sentence a person can use rather than a table of probabilities: a maker where the mark can be read, an era, an origin, and a persistent disclaimer saying that this is an AI-generated estimate rather than an expert appraisal. There is no dollar figure, no pound figure, no estimate range. We do not put numbers on objects. How much a model can make of a particular shallow punch is something we are still measuring, and we are not going to call it dependable before we know.
- Treat a low confidence flag as the useful answer
When confidence falls below threshold, Patina says so and raises an appraisal triage flag with a referral link to a vetted appraiser. That is not the app failing, it is the app telling you which of the twenty objects in front of you is the one worth a human's time and fee. Referral links may be affiliate links, and we would rather you knew that than found out later.
- Decide with your own knowledge on top
You still know things the model does not: the weight in your hand, the feel of the seam, the price on the label, the character of the house you are standing in. Patina's output is an input to your judgement. It is not a basis for buying or selling, and any result, confident or otherwise, deserves to be checked before money moves.
Why this suits a British silver collector in particular
One vision call on the photo you can actually take
Patina does not decode a mark punch by punch against a chart. It sends whatever photo you took, in whatever light the hall gave you, to a vision model and asks for maker, era, origin and a confidence level. The confidence level is how you find out how much the model could make of it.
Confidence stated, not implied
Every result carries a confidence level. A hedged answer with an honest label on it is more use in a saleroom than a bold answer you have no way of weighing.
No invented value, ever
There are subscriptions that exist to tell you what something sold for. Patina is not one of them. It will not name a figure for your cream jug, which means it will never quietly nudge you into a decision on a number it made up.
A route to a human when the object earns one
The triage flag is the point of the exercise as much as the identification is. "Is it worth paying for an appraisal?" is a real question with a real cost attached, and Patina is built to answer it rather than dodge it.
It lives in your coat pocket, not on your shelf
No loupe, no reference volume, no waiting until you are home. A photo, a phone browser, and a plain answer in the time it takes the person behind you to finish looking at the brass.
A record of what you looked at
Your account keeps your last ten scans, so the mark you half-solved at one sale is still there when you meet its twin at the next one.
What you are asking, and what actually comes back
| The question in your head | What Patina returns |
|---|---|
| Who made this? | A maker, where the mark can be read from your photo, with a confidence level attached to it. |
| How old is it? | An era, in plain English, framed as an estimate rather than a dated certificate. |
| Where was it made? | An origin, on the same terms as the maker and era. |
| Is this worth anything? | Nothing at all. Patina never states a value, in any currency, at any confidence level. |
| Is it a reproduction or period? | Not a ruling. A low confidence result is the signal that this one needs an expert eye rather than an app. |
| Is it worth paying for an appraisal? | When confidence is below threshold, a triage flag and a referral link to a vetted appraiser. |
What it will cost
Free
Free
The occasional finder or inheritance receiver who meets an unfamiliar object a few times a year and needs to see a real result before paying anything.
- Scans per month: 3
- Scan history: Last 10 scans
- Maker, era and origin from a photo
- Honest confidence level on every result
- Appraiser referral when a result needs an expert eye
- Scan history of your last 10 scans
Unlimited
$6.99 / month
The estate sale regular or serious thrift shopper who meets unfamiliar objects several times a month and wants to scan every one of them.
- Scans per month: Unlimited
- Scan history: Last 10 scans
- Dollar values: Not provided
- Unlimited scans every month
- Maker, era and origin from a photo
- Honest confidence level on every result
Where your photos go, plainly
You are in the UK and the app is not, so it is worth being direct about that before you sign up rather than after.
Signing in is email and password. Patina stores your name, email address and password hash to make the account work, the photos you scan and the results for them so that your history keeps working, your subscription status and a Stripe customer reference so the app knows which plan you are on, and clicks on appraiser referral links so we can tell which referrals are useful. Card details never touch our servers; Stripe handles those.
The application and the database are hosted on Amazon Web Services in the United States, and scan photos are processed by Anthropic's model. There is no UK or EU data residency option today, and we are not going to imply one. Photos and results are kept while your account exists. Account deletion is not yet self-serve: write to the contact address on our website from your account email and we remove the account, its photos and its scan history within thirty days. There is no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification behind any of this, and no documented uptime commitment. If any of that is a dealbreaker for the objects you photograph, better to know now.
Questions
Does Patina read British hallmarks specifically?
Patina identifies antiques from a photo generally, and that general identification is what it applies to a hallmark: you photograph the marks, it returns maker, era and origin with a confidence level. There is no hallmark database or punch-by-punch decoding behind it, and no British-specific tuning we could honestly claim. It is a second opinion on your photo, weighed by the confidence level attached to it.
How do I find out what my silver hallmark means?
The traditional route is a hallmark chart or reference book, which works well once you can already make out each punch clearly. Patina takes a different route: you photograph the marks as they are, and its general photo identification returns a read on maker, era and origin with a confidence level so you know how much weight to put on it. The chart is precise when you can read the punch; Patina is something to hold up against your own read when you cannot.
How reliable is the identification?
We will not put a figure on that, because we do not have one. Every result carries a confidence level, the screen keeps an AI-estimate disclaimer in view, and when confidence falls below threshold Patina flags it and offers a referral to a vetted appraiser. The identification flow itself is newly built and still being verified on the deployed app, which is another reason no result should be treated as a basis for buying or selling.
Will it tell me what my silver is worth?
No. Patina never states a value, in dollars, pounds or anything else. Identification is our job and valuation is an appraiser's, and mixing the two is how people end up selling something on a number an app invented.
Is this a replacement for an appraisal?
No, and it is designed not to be. When confidence in a result falls below threshold, Patina raises an appraisal triage flag and offers a referral link to a vetted appraiser. Even on a confident result, the screen keeps an AI-estimate disclaimer in view.
Can I use a photo I already took of a find?
Not yet. Capture today opens your phone's camera directly, so you take the photo inside Patina rather than choosing one from your gallery. Uploading an existing photo is on the list of things to fix.
Are the prices in pounds?
No. A UK card will be charged the dollar amount.
Can I try it now?
Not today. Patina is pre-launch, so the waitlist is the way in, and we would rather tell you that plainly than show you a sign-up form for something that is not open.