21 years: 2005 - 2026

Blog: Bears Galore! Three Bears and 0·935 Silver

First published: December 2013, last updated 24 July 2025.

I make additions and corrections to this web site frequently, but because they are buried somewhere on one of the pages the changes are not very noticeable, so I decided to create this blog section to highlight new material. Here below you will find part of one of the pages that I have either changed or added to significantly.

This section is from my page about Swiss hallmarking that can be found at Swiss Hallmarks.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me via my Contact Me page.

Silver and the Three Bears

Silver 0·935 Watch Case with Three Bears with office mark for Bienne. Click image to enlarge.

Bow with Two Bears, and Pendant with One Bear

A fineness mark of 0.935 accompanied by a Swiss hallmark comprising three bears, one small bear above two large bears, shows that the case was hallmarked in Switzerland after 1887.

The British Merchandise Marks Act of 1887 introduced new requirements for imported gold and silver watch cases. From 1 January 1888 they had to be carry no marks at all, or be hallmarked in either a British assay office or their country of origin.

The Act also stipulated that, if the watch was not marked with a country of origin, there were to be no words on the watch movement or case that might imply that the watch had been made in Britain.

For foreign watch cases that were sent to a British assay office to be hallmarked, the Act defined new, and quite objectionable, foreign hallmarks, which Swiss manufacturers, quite understandably didn't want.

As a result of this, from 1 January 1888 the British customs would not allow the import of watches with silver cases marked with either of the legal Swiss standards of silver, 0·800 or 0·875, because these were below the British legal standard of sterling.

They would also not allow the import of watches that did not have their country of origin marked if the cases marked “Fine Silver” or “Sterling Silver”, or even with “Fast” and “Slow” marked on the regulator, because the English language terms might be taken as meaning that the watch was made in England.

The effects of the British Act were discussed at a Swiss Federal Council meeting on 24 December 1887 and it was decided a distinguishing hallmark was needed to endorse 0.935 silver watch cases destined for Britain. It was decreed that this should be the set of marks shown here; the fineness mark of the number 0·935 in a rectangular surround and a hallmark of three bears, one small bear above two large bears.

The minutes of the meeting of the Federal Council are beautifully handwritten in German “Sütterlin” script and state für den Feingehalt Silber 0,935 durch zwei Abdrücke des Stempels „großer Bär“ und einen Abdruck des Stempels „kleiner Bär“ (for the fineness of silver 0·935 by two impressions of the stamp “big bear” and one of “little bear”).

The bows of pocket watches were to be stamped with two bears, as shown by the red arrows in the second picture. Another bear was stamped on the head of the pendant as shown by the single third arrow. Because of the way the rampant bears are struck almost horizontally on the bow, and the small size of the marks, people sometimes mistake these marks for lions passant.

The British customs authorities were not bothered about the number of bears. So long as silver watch cases had some official looking Swiss hallmarks, whether one bear or three, they were happy to let the goods pass – after import duty had been paid, of course.

In order to overcome problems other than hallmarking, the Swiss watch trade decided to add the country of origin to watches exported to Britain, which is the origin of the term Swiss Made.

Three Bears for Angleterre!

Sterling 935 with One Bear: Click image to enlarge

The use of 0·935 silver and the three bears marks was discussed in La Fédération Horlogère Suisse in October 1890, after a suggestion by the authorities that the practice should be discontinued and that all watch cases marked 0·935 would be hallmarked with a single bear. The watch manufacturers were strongly of the view that it was necessary to continue with it for watches that were to be exported to England, because English customers had come to recognise and appreciate the mark of the three bears. The mark of the three bears therefore continued to be an available option as before.

The mark of the three bears was not universally appreciated. It was said that customers in the United States preferred to see a single bear. Because of this, watch cases of 0·935 silver that were submitted to the Bureaux de Contrôle (assay offices) in packets marked “Destinée à l'Angleterre” (destined for England) were stamped with three bears; without this identification they were stamped with a single bear.

Manufacturers could therefore choose whether to have three bears or just one bear stamped on 0·935 silver watch cases by marking the packets “Destinée à l'Angleterre” if they wanted three bears, or omitting this if they wanted just a single bear. The image here of the case back of a Tavannes watch shows just such a mark, 0·935 and a single bear. The mark “Sterling” and the hallmark of a single bear suggests that this watch was destined for the USA since the British 1887 Merchandise Marks Act discouraged the use of English words on imported foreign products.