The sale of precious metals and jewellery is often a highly emotive and significant purchase for consumers. However, all that glistens isn't gold, which is why the area is heavily regulated. Precious metal is always alloyed with other elements to create a suitable alloy for crafting jewellery and the purity of that alloy is fundamental to the value of the piece. For example, with gold prices at a record high, reducing the gold content of an 18ct alloy from 750 parts per thousand (ppt) to only 740 ppt could make an enormous difference to the profitability of a volume line and the consumer would have no idea they had been cheated.
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