British Hallmarking Council’s Touchstone and HALO Awards championing Hallmarking Enforcement and Education

Meanwhile the Touchstone Award, also sponsored by the British Hallmarking Council, encourages Trading Standards Authorities to identify and take action against jewellers who are flouting the law by selling jewellery with misleading descriptions. The Touchstone Award is therefore about enforcement.

Some of the findings detailed in Touchstone applications over the 12 years since it began clearly illustrate the need for both enforcement and education. Fine jewellery is not an everyday purchase  for most people. It is easy for consumers to be cheated if they have no understanding of the need for, or the composition of, a hallmark.  For example, in 6 months of 2019 an ebay trader sold over 400 “platinum and diamond” engagement and wedding rings which carried a lone 950PT mark. A £150 test purchase by the NAJ revealed the items to be CZ and silver with a true retail value of £50. If these had been as described the value would have been nearer £8,000 but customers seemed completely unaware of this.  There will no doubt be people still complaining that their “platinum” engagement ring is tarnishing.

The Touchstone Award 2024 was presented to Hull City Council at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s recent Annual Conference.  Hull Trading Standards are alert to the huge monetary gain offered by mis-selling base metal jewellery and work closely with the Sheffield Assay Office to prevent this. In 2023 suspicions arose around an online trader selling large volumes of “gold” chain from a residential address. Subsequent investigation revealed it all to be base metal. A search of the premises found enough stock to create 30,000 chains, all cut from a reel of chain and stamped afterwards. The total retail value was £400,000; a huge potential loss of sales to honest jewellers.

Identifying, investigating and prosecuting such cases is time consuming and resource hungry and hallmarking prosecutions are rare. Trading Standards have a multitude of regulations to enforce and have to continually prioritise their focus.  While the Touchstone Award has done much to raise the profile of hallmarking, funding such enforcement will always be an issue.

The biggest weapon the jewellery trade has against rogue traders and those ignorant of the law is to educate potential jewellery customers. The British Hallmarking Council are working with eBay, Amazon marketplace and others, via the Assay Offices, but most of their contact is business to business. It is retailers, both online and instore who are in direct contact with the public and have the most potential to ensure that consumers understand the importance of checking for a hallmark in order to reduce opportunities for disruptors to the legitimate trade.

The HALO Award encourages online jewellers to take a fresh look at their website and descriptions, through the eyes of a customer and consider what else could be done to emphasise the importance of hallmarks. Clear website information, accurate product descriptions throughout the customer journey and creative social media posts repeating the hallmarking message will all impress the HALO judges. 

Some online sites are delivering that already, so why not apply? If there is still progress to be made there is still time as applications don’t close until 16 September.  For more information and to apply visit www.naj.co.uk/halo or contact the British Hallmarking Council Secretary, Louise Chambers SecretariatBHC@outlook.com.

Image Credit: the presentation of the Touchstone Award to Hull City Trading Standards at the CTSI Conference in Leeds in June. From left to right is Chris Wilson (City Trading Standards Officer), Ian Mattinson (Senior Trading Standards Officer), Rachel Stephenson (Head of Public Protection), Adam Jacobs (NAJ Chair) and at the end Rav Wilding (Master of Ceremonies).