Melbourne NCJV chairman Rikki McAndrew has noticed an increasing spate of fake gold watch chains and bracelets
Jewellers warned over fake gold
4.6 k views | Posted May 31, 2011 |
By Sonia Nair
An upsurge in ‘fake’ gold jewellery has been discovered in Melbourne, where six bracelets coated with gold and stamped as gold looked so genuine that retailers are being warned they wouldn’t know the difference.
National Council of Jewellery Valuers (NCJV) Melbourne president Rikki McAndrew, who operates a gold trading business, discovered the ‘fake’ gold pieces when his customers unwittingly tried to sell them to him.
“Most of them were blocks of tungsten and silver coated quite thickly in gold. Just last Friday someone came in with a chain that was stamped 14ct gold but turned out to be copper nickel,” McAndrew said.
“I believe someone is making gold bracelets and watch chains that are in actual fact gold on copper. I’ve came across a lot of them that are stamped 9ct gold but just feel wrong,” he added.
Each piece that McAndrew had come across had the same clasp. He believes the pieces were not locally made and were more likely to have originated from China.
“I would guess China because of the style – the clasp is a very Chinese clasp,” he said.
McAndrew said it would be near impossible for retailers and consumers to ascertain if pieces they bought were fake or real. One of the pieces he had discovered was slightly rough but had the right weight.
“That piece was particularly convincing and probably the best [fake] I have ever seen,” he said.
He said the gold-plated tungsten pieces were particularly hard to detect because tungsten is a heavy metal, similar in weight to gold.
Gold-plated silver pieces are easier to identify, according to McAndrew.
“If it’s gold on silver it is easier to tell because it doesn’t feel right, it is roughly made and it does not have the right heft to it. Also, you can tell by the clink in sound, it just sounds wrong.”
Although the past month has yielded more fake gold pieces than usual, McAndrew said it was not a new problem.
“The high gold prices have caused a lot of manufacturers to cut corners and produce cheaply made gold pieces,” he said.
He warned retailers and consumers against buying gold jewellery from unreliable sources and cited pawnbrokers and eBay as places where he believed fake gold items were often purchased.
“All you can do is establish a relationship with someone that you trust and buy from them,” McAndrew said.
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