February 12, 2012

I was recently gifted piece of jewelry made by Salvador Dali. It is an 18 carat gold pendant of entitled “Ama de Llaves”, and was purchased from a certified jeweler in Mijas Spain by my father in 1993; he paid $459.00 USD for it. I seem to find it in scuplture form on-line, but not in necklace form? It has authentication paperwork that came with it, and a credit card-like piece with the Dali logo and name of the piece on it.

Dad (90 now) told me to sell it, but I am having difficulty locating it anywhere, except for the sculpture?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Meg Hallbourg

What you have is a mark of the maker, or better known as a trademark, not a hallmark. In the United States, unless the company has registered their trademark, there is no official or easy means of tracing such a mark. Even several of the resources that I have listed above have since disappeared. It is a thankless and laborious job to document markers and their marks, and no one wants to do it.
With that said, Heritage Galleries is a resource I have not listed yet, http://fineart.ha.com/ref/hallmarks.zx. They have recorded a vast amount of maker’s marks from items that have pasted through their auctions, and they should be around for awhile! Try them.

Good luck in your pursuit!

Danusia

HALLMARK RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Unfortunately, here in the United States we do not have hallmarking. Thus there is often the erroneous interchange of the terms “hallmark” and “trademark,” and often they are consider as being one and the same. Just as you learned, they are not the same.
Hallmarking results from, as described above, the legally imposed independent testing of a precious item and the subsequent striking of that fineness in a special format, generally unique to the hallmarking country. By law, the item could not be offered for sale without such a hallmark in such countries.
Here, our laws are much more lenient and place the burden of accuracy of the fineness claim on the maker. In the USA and Canada, an item of precious metal that has a fineness mark on it must have that mark accompanied by a maker’s mark (also correctly called a trademark, sponsor’s mark, or responsibility mark), so that if the item fell short of it’s claimed purity or fineness (underkarated), there would be the trademark of those responsible.
Essentially, the person advising you is asking you to create your ‘mark,’ or as you have already figured out, a trademark. It is just as important, here, to create your trademark A trademark will be identified with your style as a brand name, which works in your favor as time goes on and you gain more recognition.
Trademarks are not a simple task. You must devise a design that you will be happy with for years to come, make it simple enough to mark in a small area (like inside ring shank), and then present it to the patent and trademark office of this government. It may be worth your time and sanity to have a trademark attorney handle all the paperwork for you.
Whatever you choose to do, good luck in you endeavors! Hope this has helped to clear things up for you.