Monday, July 30, 2007

What is Hallmark Jewellery?

As news of naive customers taken for ride by jewellers makes news headlines in prominent newspapers like this Gold not as pure as claimed, finds BIS survey, this Customers lose over rs.10000 Crore annually and this wonderful article by Shailendra Kakani Hallmarking to increase gold consumption in India point it becomes increasingly "smart" to learn a little more about hallmarking expecially if jewellery shopping is imminent.

Now coming to the title of this post.

According to Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) "Hallmarking is the accurate determination and official recording of the proportiante content of precious metal in jewellery. Hallmarks are thus official marks used in many countries as a guarantee of purity or fineness of gold jewellery".

BIS is a regulatory body of the Govt. of India which has standardised various products consumed today.
It is very important to understand the benefits provided by ensuring Hallmark Jewellery. As pointed out on top , A BIS survery found 90% of the smaples below state dpurity. Some as low as 44%. Consumers lose more than Rs. 10,000 crore annually due to this fraud.

So how can one identify Hallmarked Jewellery?
There are 5 visible marks on the back of your jewellery which are mandated by BIS (more here).
  1. BIS Hallmark Logo
  2. Purity of Gold '916' -22ct, '875' - 21ct and so on.
  3. The Hallmarking centre's Logo.
  4. The jewellers' identification mark.
  5. Year of Hallmarking 'A' -year 2000, 'B' -year 2001 .... 'H' - year 2007.


So armed with this knowledge and a magnifying lens( the marks are usually very small to be legible with naked eyes) you are ready to give your local jeweller a hard time:)
Related Posts:
Hallmark Mandatory from Jan 2008...Really?

Mandatory Hallmark from Jan 2008: The Fallout
Hallmarking Jewellery NOT mandatory after all
TrustMark : Is it better than Hallmark?
Diamond Engagement Rings

Related Articles:
Hallmarking: Need of the Hour

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

why all the jewllers charge different Making charges& also they charge wastage when they are buying per piece custermer still do not know how much he should pay. They have started cheating on making charges

Anonymous said...

it is a big issue that all jewellers charge much more on making and wastage for HALLMARK jewellery. it costs more than double if the jewellery is "HALLMARKED"... it should also be standarised per gram atleast making.

Diamond wedding ring said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

while purchasing Hallmark jewelery the shopkeeper does not mention same in cash memo.He says the Hallmark has every thing you want then why over cash memo.Why are they shy of writing "Hallmarked Jewelery" over the cash memo?