You will probably see up to three marks stamped into any piece that you receive from Edelstein Edelsteine. One of those will indicate the type of metal and its purity--for example, you might see "14K" or "18K" or higher karat designations stamped into gold, and you would see ".925" or "STERLING" stamped into sterling silver or ".999" stamped into fine silver. The other stamps that you will see are our maker's marks, which are explained below.

This stamp is the hallmark of Edelstein Edelsteine Metalsmiths. All pieces produced since September 2003 bear this mark, unless the piece is too fine to allow its use. The two capital "E" letters are the initials of the company, artfully separated by two perpendicular lines. In addition, when turned counter-clockwise by 90 degrees, the mark resembles the seven-armed menorah from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

One of my older marks and in fact the name of the studio that Edelstein Edelsteine grew out of, this is the Chinese character "zhèng." It means many things, including "exact," "precise" and "upright." It also happens to resemble my initials (JE). Although it was used on all pieces for an extended period of time, this mark is now limited to use as my personal mark on works that fall in the Asiatica category, in conjunction with the Edelstein Edelsteine hallmark and the metal mark.

Typically used as my personal mark on all Judaica and Miscellanea, the symbol at left is a composite of the tenth and sixteenth Hebrew letters, י (yud) and ע (ayin). Together in this context they represent the name יהושע (Yehoshua/Joshua) through a rare but established method of abbreviation that omits the middle of a word (Jewish Encyclopedia, p. 40).