Nowadays due to high price of gold ornaments, buyers should exercise caution in purchasing gold jewels. Since gold ornaments are capital one for important functions like marriage, birth days, wedding anniversaries and for investments, buyers should know what they purchase is real gold. Many jewellary shops are cheating customers mentioning less cost than market rate and sell poor quality gold jewellary.
Hall Marking:
Pure gold and silver cannot be used for jewels as they are too soft to withstand wear and hence small proportion of some other metal is being added so that they can be made malleable and ductile. Gold and Silver metals are costly but the alloying metal is cheaper. Excess of alloy can be introduced without changing the color of the precious metals thus making it difficult to detect without technical tests. In order to control frauds on public who are not aware of this mixing technique, Hall marking is introduced in India. It is the accurate determination and universal official recording of the proportionate content of precious metals like gold and silver in precious metal articles. This is used now in many countries which serve as a guarantee of purity of the metals in any precious
metal articles including jewellary.
Benefits to customers and jewelers:
Buyer gets right purity of gold/silver for the value of the money paid which is supported by third party assurance. This will help jewelers to get more customers to their shops thus assuring quality and quantity.
Control mechanism of BIS on licensee jewelers and Assyaing and hallmarking centres:
Regular sample audit of assaying and hall marking centers and testing random market samples drawn from licensee jewelers helps BIS to have control on quality of gold and silver. Renewal of recognition of hall marking centers and jewelers is based on performance for ever three years. If any one is not found conforming to the requirements, they are not allowed to use the license.
What are the things layman to look for in an Hall marked gold/silver article:
A. Gold Hallmark consists of following:
i) BIS seal: This will be in the shape of triangle which can be seen in BIS website.The site of the BIS is bis.org.in
ii) Purity grade/fineness:
24 carat denotes 1000.
Purity grade/fineness can be any one of the following :
958 - Corresponds to 23 Carat
916 - Corresponds to 22 Carat
875 - Corresponds to 21 Carat
750 - Corresponds to 18 Carat
708 - Corresponds to 17 Carat
585 - Corresponds to 14 Carat
375 - Corresponds to 9 Carat
iii) Assaying/Hallmarking Centre’s Identification Mark
One of the logos as displayed on BIS website.
iv) Year of Marking – denoted by a code letter e.g.
‘A’ for year 2000 ‘B’for year 2001‘C’ for year 2002 ‘D’for year 2003‘E’ for year 2004 ‘F’
for year 2005 ‘G’ for year 2006 ‘H’ for year 2007 ‘J’ for year 2008 ‘K’ for 2009 ‘L’ for 2010
v) Jeweler’s Identification Mark
Jeweler’s own shop identification mark.
Gold/Silver Buyer should be careful in checking the following while purchasing precious metal
article having gold/silver:
Check for the above five items. The shop owner who says that his jewels have Hall marking, then the jewels should have these five items .The shop owner has to provide Magnifying lens to check the same also to customer. The shops which shows some of the items only are not reliable.
Can we believe Carat Meter maintained in Jewellary shops?
No. The Xray used in Carat meter in shops just checks upto 20 micron level at the surface of jewellary and tells the purity. If the jewellary is gold plated, then any one can be cheated. So don’t believe Carat Meter.
What is KDM?
KDM is nothing to do with purity of gold. It refers to a metal named Cadmium Monoxide which is a solder metal which helps in soldering the precious metals. Since usage of KDM may invite cancer for the user, BIS is not allowing usage of this metal. Some jewelers are mentioning in their jewels as KDM to cheat the hapless victims who think that it denotes purity of gold. So customers should be careful about this.
Is there any grievance redressal mechanism from BIS?
Yes. The customer should obtain bill from jeweler who is supposed to be Hallmark repute. If any complaint is there about quality and quantity, You can lodge it with BIS, South zone office, CIT campus, Taramani,Chennai, Tamil nadu for south based shops and other offices for other places.
The site of the BIS is bis.org.in
What is the Cost for getting an Gold/Silver article hall marked?
It is very cheap and Jewellary shops uses this facility to improve their sales. So any shop not using this facility is cheating the customers that it is costly thus avoiding quality and quantity complaints and
sell jewels without quality and quantity.
The rates as determined by BIS is only:
Rs.18 per article of gold and minimum charges for a consignment shall be Rs.100/-.Taxes extra.
Rs.10 per article of silver upto 100 gm. Rs.50 from 100-500 gm per article. Rs.100 for more than 500 gm per article. Minimum charges per consignment is Rs.150/-. Taxes extra.