The goldHallmarks & purity
The gold signsits name.
Nearly every piece of gold carries a struck mark a couple of millimetres across saying exactly what the metal is. Here is where to find it, how to read it, and what to do when it is not there.
Where themark hides.
A hallmark is small on purpose, and it is never on show. Makers strike it where wear will not reach it: inside the curve of a bangle, on the tongue of a clasp or a small tag beside it, inside the band of a ring, along the flat of an earring post.
What it says is short. Three digits give the purity in parts of gold per thousand, so a bangle stamped 916 is 22 carat metal. Some pieces spell it in carats instead, 22K or 22ct. Beside the number there is often a maker’s mark, and on imported gold a stamp from whichever assay office tested it. Indian and Gulf pieces often carry one.
Australia has never had an assay office of its own, so on gold made here the number is the maker’s declaration. That is no cause for alarm. It is simply why the mark is where checking starts, not where it ends, and why every piece here goes over the scale whatever is stamped on it.
Under the loupe
Macro: a 916 stamp struck inside the curve of a bangle, the punch edges still crisp.
Parts perthousand.
Carat counts parts of twenty-four. The struck number counts parts of a thousand. They are the same fact in two spellings, and four numbers cover nearly everything that crosses this counter.
- 91622 carat
- 91.6% gold. The deepest colour short of pure, and the mark on most of what this cabinet holds.
- 87521 carat
- 87.5% gold. The other number we keep. A little harder than 916, and the standard across the Gulf, so pieces bought abroad often wear it. More on 21 carat →
- 75018 carat
- 75% gold. The fine-jewellery end of Australian retail. We do not stock it, though inherited boxes are full of it.
- 3759 carat
- 37.5% gold, which is more alloy than gold. The everyday carat of Australian chain stores, old and new, and the mark that most often surprises people at the scale.
Two more turn up now and then: 585 is 14 carat, mostly on American pieces, and 999 is nearly pure, more often a bar than a bangle. Whatever the number, the sum is the same — weight, the day’s rate, the making. How gold is priced →
Unmarked is notunknowable.
Plenty of honest gold carries no mark at all. Village-made bangles, rings resized until the stamp polished away, a chain whose marked clasp was replaced years ago. A missing mark proves nothing either way.
So bring it in. We weigh unmarked and inherited gold at the counter while you stand there, and read what the metal itself can tell us, so you know more about the piece before anyone talks about what it is worth.
Bring the piece.We’ll find the mark.
A loupe, good light and a minute at the counter. If there is no mark to find, the scale will say most of what the stamp would have.
364-378 Prospect Road, Kilburn SA 5084
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30am – 6pm