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Gold jewellery continued to perform well in May as overall hallmarking figures fell 7.2% when compared with the same month last year.
Hallmarking figures from the four UK assay offices – and compiled by the Assay Office Birmingham – found there was a total of 713,564 items hallmarked in May, compared with 770,075.
Despite the fall, gold continued its positive performance, with the total number of hallmarked items up 3.8% to 374,741, up from 360,930 in the same month last year.
18-carat gold reported a 15.6% increase in the number of items hallmarked to 71,950 – compared with 62,225 in May last year – and 9-carat gold recorded an increase of 0.8%.
Platinum and palladium hallmarking were also up 22% and 14.5% respectively, but silver dragged overall figures down as the number of hallmarked silver items fell 20% from 379,872 items last May to 303,756.
| Month | Month | Variance | % | |||
| May-15 | May-16 | |||||
| Gold | ||||||
| 999 | 55 | 151 | 96 | 174.5 | ||
| 990 | 0 | 56 | 56 | 0.0 | ||
| 916 | 39,635 | 41,683 | 2,048 | 5.2 | ||
| 750 | 62,255 | 71,950 | 9,695 | 15.6 | ||
| 585 | 7,524 | 7,497 | -27 | -0.4 | ||
| 375 | 251,461 | 253,404 | 1,943 | 0.8 | ||
| 360,930 | 374,741 | 13,811 | 3.8 | |||
| Silver | ||||||
| 999 | 1,065 | 2,085 | 1,020 | 95.8 | ||
| 958 | 1,020 | 2,350 | 1,330 | 130.4 | ||
| 925 | 377,725 | 299,142 | -78,583 | -20.8 | ||
| 800 | 62 | 179 | 117 | 188.7 | ||
| 379,872 | 303,756 | -76,116 | -20 | |||
| Platinum | ||||||
| 999 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 400.0 | ||
| 950 | 20,734 | 25,279 | 4,545 | 21.9 | ||
| 900 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 75.0 | ||
| 850 | 2 | 11 | 9 | 450.0 | ||
| 20,741 | 25,302 | 4,561 | 22 | |||
| Palladium | ||||||
| 999 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 | ||
| 950 | 7,043 | 8,061 | 1,018 | 14.5 | ||
| 500 | 1,489 | 1,703 | 214 | 14.4 | ||
| 8,532 | 9,765 | 1,233 | 14.5 | |||
| 770,075 | 713,564 | -56,511 | -7.3 |
