 There
is gold. And then there is hallmarked gold. Hallmarks
are administered at the world's renowned Goldsmith's Hall in
the city of London. The Goldsmith's are incorporated by Royal
Charter and have tested and approved the metal for over
700 years.
Hallmarking today is the most important form of consumer protection.
The Hallmark can tell you the history of the item that bears
it, that is:
1. The type of metal (gold, silver, platinum, etc).
2. The manufacturer.
3. The city of hallmarking ( Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi…)
4. Standard of purity (19ct, 20ct, 22ct, 24ct).
To put it simply, hallmarking is a foolproof method to accurately
determine and record the exact gold content in jewellery.
I n
Bangalore, C Krisniah Chetty & Sons cater to the demand
for hallmarked gold. They have been in the jewellery business
for an astounding 130 years and hallmarked gold is their new
venture.
C Vinod Hayagriv, the Managing Director of C. Krishniah
Chetty & Sons, spoke to bangalorebest.com on hallmarked
jewellery.
The bulk of their gold is purchased from banks and bullion dealers,
which is of high quality. Their eminent customers are spread
all over South India and there is a regular demand from many
celebrities for their jewellery.
 "We
not only have the run-of-the-mill type of jewellery, but also
a variety of very common bread-butter jewellery too," says
Vinod Hayagriv.
Usually, the middle and upper-middle strata of society buy the
recent trendy designs, which are a blend of both the South Indian
and North Indian patterns. These jewellery pieces have very
fine design element where the motifs are not very strong and
the texture is subdued.
Jewellers desirous of hallmarking their gold jewellery first
need to become Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certified jewellers.
BIS is the national standards body of India responsible for
setting standards on par with the internationally accepted ISO
9000 family of quality standards.
With hallmarked gold, you can be absolutely sure of its cartage
and fineness. Hallmark provide s
a third-party assurance and satisfaction that you have
got the right purity of gold for the given price. They also
protect you against victimization by irregular gold quality.
There is no table-top methodology to test the purity of the
gold in the business as there is an absence of any kind of regulation.
The only way to check the purity of the metal is to destroy
the piece or melt it.
"Unless each jeweller is quality conscious, hallmarking of
gold is not applicable. Almost all the items here in our stores
is hallmarked. Right now we are not levying any extra charges
on the hallmarked gold for 3-4 months, but once this business
picks up, we will increase the rates as we have to pay a certain
amount from our pockets for getting each piece of jewellery
hallmarked," says a proud Vinod.
Remember to check for all of these 6 seals before buying a piece
of jewellery:
- The BIS seal.
- The seal of 916 which is the number indicating
the gold content on a scale of 1000.
- Seal of KDM or Cadbium jewellery with which the
ornament is soldered and, when melted to check the purity,
there is no wastage at all.
- Seal of the job worker.
- Seal of the shop from where the jewellery was
bought.
- The seal of purity, i.e. 22/22, where the first
"22" means even if the gold is melted, the purity of the
piece does not come down and the second "22" stands for
the purity of the metal when rubbed on any stone for purity.
At C Krishniah Chetty & Sons, a customer should look
out for the yellow tags to recognise hallmarked gold
and the white tags for the non-hallmarked ones. This
is not to say that the articles without the yellow-tags are
fake. These are also genuine pieces, but it is not certified.
The only difference is that hallmarking a piece of jewellery
will add extra value to the piece compared to the non-hallmarked
piece.
Now that you know what to look for when purchasing gold, make
sure that coveted item of jewellery you decide to invest on
is hallmarked gold. Hallmarked gold is available at:
C. Krishniah Chetty & Sons
# 35 Commercial Street, Bangalore-560 001
Phone: 2558 8731
Fax: 2558 9604
E-mail: ckcsons@vsnl.com
| Inputs for the article by C Vinod Hayagriv,
M D, C Krishniah Chetty & Sons |
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Aditi Kumar
Photographs by Somashekar D P
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6:49:32 PM 
