Hallmarking of Indian Gold Jewellery

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Hallmarking of Indian Gold Jewellery

All of us ask for hallmarked jewellery. This is a relatively new requirement by most buyers since Amitabh Bachhan advertised it a few years back. But do you know what a hallmark looks like? You would be surprised, just like I was.

You would be surprised and even shocked to see most of your polki jewellery doesn’t have hallmark. Older polki jewellery definitely do not have the mark, and once they are tested you will realize that those pieces do not have the gold that was promised by the jeweler. Be careful next time, and make sure your gold jewellery is hallmarked.

The Indian government finally stepped in and made is mandatory for jewellery and certain ornaments to be hallmarked to protect the buyers from being cheated. Precious metal usually gold, but silver & platinum are also hallmarked.

Till very recently, I believed hallmarking is only a simple test done by any government testing agency. The agency issues a certificate of the purity of precious metal, along with a stamp of purity on the item. Gold coins also need to be hallmarked.

But it is much more than just that.

The hallmark on Indian Gold Jewellery should look like this:

Indian Gold Jewellery

The jewellery piece should essentially have 4 marks.

BIS - The BIS hallmark is a hallmarking system for gold jewellery as well as silver artifacts sold in India certifying the purity of the metal.
Purity – The second mark represents the purity of the metal. For example, 999 means 24K gold.
Assaying Centre – The assaying centre is the registered testing centre for such services. Each registered centre has a code, which needs to put on the Indian gold jewellery to make sure it is being tested at a legitimate source.
Jeweler’s Mark – Every jeweler dealing with precious metals should be registered with BIS. BIS issues the jeweler a mark, which needs to be stamped on the gold jewellery as well.

Indian Gold Jewellery