Gold hallmarks are stamps of approval indicating that your gold piece meets the international standards for gold fineness. It indicates the millesimal fineness of your golden item and it, in some way, is the manufacturer’s guarantee that his claims for the purity of gold used in that particular item is indeed true.
Pure gold, as a metal, is generally too soft to be used for anything, For this reason, other metals are mixed with gold to create gold alloys sturdy enough to be used as raw material for gold crafts. The problem with this is that if the metal added to gold is too much, the monetary value of gold goes down.
Not everyone has the ability to determine the purity of gold in a certain item. In fact, not even veteran goldsmiths would be able to tell you accurately the millesemal fineness gold alloys by simply looking at them. Therefore, without the gold hallmarks, individuals will not be able to determine if the gold item they are purchasing is worth the price they are paying for.
You might be asking, Who stamps these marks on the gold?
Originally, the marks were impressed by a guild of goldsmiths. These goldsmiths are the ones who assay or test for the purity of the gold product, and they are the ones that mark the gold item within their guild halls. Through this process, the term hallmark was coined. At present, these hallmarks are now impressed by assay offices.
In these assay offices, gold products are tested for purity through various means. You can basically categorize these means between destructive and non-destructive methods. For the non-destructive method, two popular methods are used:
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Touchstone, which entails a special kind of stone that is used by rubbing on the golden item. Then the stone will be treated with acids which will result in the stone producing a certain color. It will then be compared to references. This method has an accuracy of 10 to 20 parts per thousand.
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X-Ray Fluorescence, This method is the quickest way in determining the millesimal fineness of gold in the item. It is also more effective with and accuracy 2-5 parts per thousands. Not only does this method measure the purity of gold, it could also determine how much of the added metal is used.
For a more accurate measurement of the fineness of gold parts in an item, a destructive method is required. The most popular method used in measuring gold fineness is Fire assay or Cupellation. This method requires the melting of the golden item. After melting, the metals used in the gold alloy is separated and measured. This method is the most accurate in assaying gold because it has an accuracy of 1 part in 10,000.
Since Fire Assay is a destructive method and all items produced must be assayed, the usual practice involves all three or at least two of the assaying methods to be used. While picking a few items to undergo cupellation (assuming that the items are massed produced), the rest would undergo either the touchstone method, the x-ray fluorescence method or both.
With these methods used in determining the fineness or purity of gold in gold alloys, whenever you see a genuinely hallmarked item, then you can be assured that what you hold or own meets the claims of the makers or manufacturers of that item.
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