hello all,
I am very close to have my website up and I wanted to reach out to you all and see if you as a community use hallmarks consistently, if your customers look for them. Also if you use a custom ‘makers’ stamp to identify you pieces and whether that is because it is a point of (well earned) pride or to prevent fraud or other trouble.
Because to date I have just been making as a hobby and selling to friends and family I haven’t bothered getting the stamps or learning how. If they are important to the value of the piece please make suggestions for tools and equipment and strategy on placement.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts
Heather
It also depends on where you live and your legislation. Here in Finland for example, all silver items over 10g and gold, platinum and palladium items over 1g have to be marked with a registered responsibility/makers mark and the proper fineness/purity mark. Otherwise you are not allowed to sell them as precious metal. Smaller items are usually also marked even though it’s optional. You should check your local regulations. However, I think any selfrespecting craftsman should mark their products even if it wasn’t compulsory.
Thanks for your feed back! This question was mainly driven by my exhaustion from the number of learning curves I have gone through this year with launching my small business. I have never stamped anything and I know there will be a technique to it. I guess you could call it laziness but I think of it more as choosing my battles. 
you’re right though, legally and otherwise, I just need to stamp my stuff!
You need to start stamping your work with something that you can point to and say “I did that”. You definitely need to stamp it with a quality stamp that identifies the metal content and karat weight, if gold. If you work in copper or brass, you might think about using an electric engraver to indicate this fact. I add a serial number to all of my larger bracelets as well as the size. I have done this since 1973 and people often call, email or text and say, “Do you remember the bracelet you made me in 1983? Can you make me another one a little bit bigger?” I ask them for the SN and then I can say that I remember. The regulations about stamping in the US changed several years ago, but you still need to stamp a piece with what it is made out of. Something to connect it to you is a really good idea. Good luck…Rob