In summary, it could now be said that the hallmarking process is carried out by lasers because lasers are used for both marking directly and the making of Punches The question that could be asked is this: why is laser marking not used for hallmarking all articles? Indeed, it is used in some countries that have recently introduced hallmarking systems. However, in the UK, uptake has been no more than around 20% of all items hallmarked. This is because customers still like the association of handcrafted quality that striking a mark with a punch entails; the marks on any two articles are never quite the same, making each article unique