The growth of the gold industry worldwide has caused a growth in the number of gold counterfeiters. Counterfeit jewelry is the bane of any customer and optimizes the quote “All that glitters is not gold.” Although there can be multiple ways to get authentic gold jewelry, lets find out those ways –
- Color is one of the prime indicators of the purification of gold. Most of the times, gold is blended with copper, iron, silver, sulfur to other anamorphic forms. A pure gold has a warm buttery yellow color, which can be a bit difficult to spot for the naked eye, although microscopes can be used to study this in detail. Nevertheless, pure gold is too soft to be used as jewelry.
- One of the most glorified properties of gold is malleability, the ability to be converted into different shapes and sizes. Gold can be rounded, flattened and thinned to desired shape and size. The transformation would not make it lose its size or break. Fake gold on the other hand is often hard, and doesn't show this ability and shatters on pressure.
- A nitric acid test also reveals the purity of gold whereas the fake counterpart changes its color and gives out a green foam.
- An Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) can be performed to measure the density of gold in jewelry, although, this deals in the destruction of the jewelry and is not commonly recommended.
- Usage of X-ray fluorescence and touchstones can help in detailed understanding of the purity.
- Gold is measured in Carats on the basis of its purity. Popularity of pureness differs in various gold markets such as 14K purity in U.S., 22K in India and so on.
- Hallmarking of Gold is another protection, which can save customer much of the hassles in counterfeiting. Hallmarking provides a quality assurance to the customer and thus, retaining customer value and trust in his purchase. Hallmarking involves 4 Procedures -
1. BIS Mark
2. Fineness Number
3. Assaying and Hallmarking Centre's Mark
4. Jeweler’s identification Mark and Year of Marking denoted by a code letter and decided by BIS
Although, verification of the gold through a professional jeweler is highly recommended, these above practices can help you protect your investments in gold.
