Facts About Gold Purity in Gold Jewellery

Gold Hallmarking in India - Facts About Gold Purity in Gold Jewellery

One of the most sought after item by Indians is gold. Since ancient time Gold is considered as a store house of value in India. Be it urban India or rural India, rich or poor India, each one tries to buy gold at the first available opportunity. Ladies always eye for this yellow metal. In an estimate India consumers over 500 tonnes of gold every year and 80% of this is used in jewellery manufacture. Rural India accounts for nearly 70% of Indian gold consumption. In India majority of jewellery is still manufactured in traditional method i.e. by hand using a mouth blowpipe with an oil or candle flame for soldering and melting and alloyed using charcoal furnaces. However, in recent times big brands like Tanshiq have also entered in the gold jewellery market in a big way in urban India.

However, the purity of gold has always been of great concern for households in India. We are all well aware that large scale sales of gold are prevalent in India which is far from pure gold. All over India crores of people are being cheated by jewellers. Only good point is that in recent times, an awareness has been created and jewellers in big cities with brand names now at least do not cheat in large scale. They can inflate prices on one pretext or other, but quality of gold content has certainly shown some improvement. However, in smaller towns where there is a tradition of family jewellers, who frankly speaking really betray the gullible poor customers. In the name that they are ready to buy back gold any time, they are able to sell gold with lots of impurities.

In India mostly jewellery sold is under purity of 22 carat, whereas internationally the popular jewellery is of 18 or14 carat.

We give below an ad by Government of India, which appeared in September 2012 in major newspapers, and which everybody must read to know the basic facts about gold and what to check while purchasing gold jewellery.

The Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery in India

BIS hallmark for gold jewellery consists of five components:

(1) The BIS logo

(2) A three digit number (out of a set of six pre-defined values) indicating the purity of the gold in part-per-thousand-format viz; 958, 916, 875, 750, 585, 375. Thus a BIS 916 hallmark would certify to a purity of 916 per 1000, that is 91.6%, translating to a 22 carat purity of gold.

Purity grade

958 Corresponding to 23 Carat

916 Corresponding to 22 Carat

875 Corresponding to 21 Carat

750Corresponding to 18 Carat

585 Corresponding to 14 Carat

375 Corresponding to 9 Carat

(3) Logo of the assaying centre

(4) A code denoting the year of hallmarking e.g.

‘A’ is 2000

‘B’ – 2001

‘C’ – 2002

‘D’ – 2003

‘E’ – 2004

‘F’ – 2005

‘G’ – 2006

‘H’ – 2007

‘J’ – 2008

'K' – 2009

'L' – 2010

'M' – 2011

(5) Logo/code of the jeweller

Government of India' has identified Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) a sole agency in India to operate the Hallmark scheme. BIS hallmarking Scheme is voluntary in nature in nature at present and is operating under BIS Act, Rules and Regulations. It operates on the basis of trust and thus it is desirable that aspect of quality control are in built in the system responsible for managing quality.

In early January, 2012 the Cabinet had approved the BIS (Amendment) Bill that aims to expand the ambit of mandatory hallmarking to include more products, including gold. The Bill has not yet been introduced in Parliament. However, as per news reports in August 2012 To protect consumers from unscrupulous jewellers, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has advised the government to enforce compulsory hallmarking of gold jewellery. Consumers were exposed to the risk of buying impure gold jewellery due to inadequate coverage of Indian jewellers and goldsmiths under the BIS's voluntary hallmarking scheme as the hallmarking was not made mandatory, it noted a report.

THIRD PARTY LINKS FOR EVERYTHING YOU MAY LIKE TO KNOW / MORE YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT GOLD / GOLD AND SILVER JEWELLERY HALLMARKING IN INDIA

HALLMARKING OF GOLD IN INDIA

BIS SCHEME FOR HALLMARKING

BIS CERTIFICATION SCHEME FOR HALLMARKING OF GOLD JEWELLERY

FAQs ON HALLMARKING

LOOK FOR FOLLOWING MARKINGS ON GOLD JEWELLERY / ARTEFACT

Advances against Gold Ornaments & Jewellery -RBI Circular to Banks

FEEDBACK

SCHEME FOR GOLD / SILVER JEWELLERS

SCHEME FOR CERTIFICATION FOR GOLD

SCHEME FOR CERTIFICATION FOR SILVER

CERTIFICATION FEE SCHEDULE

HALLMARKING LICENCE FOR MULTICHAIN OUTLET

CORPORATE LICENCE FOR MULTICHAIN OUTLET

APPLICATION FORM

LIST OF LICENCEES FOR GOLD (Locate Hallmarked Jewellers in your City)

APPLICATION STATUS FOR GOLD

LIST OF LICENCEES FOR SILVER (Locate Hallmarked Jewellers in your City)

APPLICATION STATUS FOR SILVER

GOVT. SCHEME FOR SETTING UP OF GOLD ASSAYING & HALLMARKING CENTRES

Expression of Interest for setting up of Gold Assaying & Hallmarking centres under the Central Assistance Scheme- Advertisement

Application form

Terms and Conditions

SCHEME FOR ASSAYING & HALLMARKING CENTRES

CRITERIA FOR RECOGNITION OF ASSAYING AND HALLMARKING CENTRES ( Assaying of Gold & Silver)

APPLICATION FORM ( FOR BIS RECOGNITION )

FEE SCHEDULE

LIST OF ASSAYING & HALLMARKING CENTRES (WITH LINK FOR E MAIL)

APPLICATION STATUS

LIST OF MAJOR EQUIPMENTS

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