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A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of metal, mostly to certify the content of noble metals—such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium. In a more general sense, the term hallmark is used to refer to any standard of quality.
24-carat gold is pure (while 100% purity is very difficult to attain, 24-carat as a designation is permitted in commerce for a minimum of 99.95% purity), 18-carat gold is 18 parts gold, 6 parts another metal (forming an alloy with 75% gold), 12-carat gold is 12 parts gold (12 parts another metal), and so forth. [20]
The BIS Hallmark is a hallmarking system for gold as well as silver jewellery sold in India, certifying the purity of the metal. [1] [2] It certifies that the piece of jewellery conforms to a set of standards laid by the Bureau of Indian Standards, the national standards organization of India. India is the second biggest market for gold and its ...
bag mark. Also called a contact mark. A surface mark, or nick, on a coin, usually from contact with other coins in a mint bag. [1] More often seen on large gold or silver coins. banker's mark A small countermark applied to a coin by a bank or a trader indicating that they consider the coin to be genuine and of legal weight.
Assay offices are institutions set up to assay (test the purity of) precious metals. This is often done to protect consumers from buying fake items. Upon successful completion of an assay (i.e. if the metallurgical content is found be equal or better than that claimed by the maker and it otherwise conforms to the prevailing law) the assay offices typically stamp a hallmark on the item to ...
The specifications of bullion are often regulated by market bodies or legislation. In the European Union, the minimum purity for gold to be referred to as "bullion", which is treated as investment gold with regard to taxation, is 99.5% for gold bullion bars and 90% for bullion coins. [2]
identification of the manufacturer and place of origin (manufacturer's mark, maker's mark, later a factory mark); differentiation in order to distinguish between similar items (for example, a date mark). These marks are typically useful to distributors; [7] certification of the product quality (certification mark, for example, an assay mark).
A model of a late 19th-century Canadian seal used to certify the quality of assayed gold. A metallurgical assay is a compositional analysis of an ore, metal, or alloy, usually performed in order to test for purity or quality. Some assay methods are suitable for raw materials; others are more appropriate for finished goods.