You don't have to know anything about hallmarks to use this book, it's been designed to be a visual index. The absolutely unique feature of this book is that it will indentify the first mark you need - The City Mark. Illustrated city marks are all on the fore edge of its pages. So you just flick the pages to match a mark on your silver to its illustration in the book - from there its easy. The Jackson book uses a design where The City you need is presented as a Page Heading. So to use Jackson's book, you have first to know that the Anchor mark represents Birmingham or the Lion Head represents London etc. In Jackson, you need to know the City Name before you can look up its hallmarks system to date your silver.