Gold drags down January hallmarking figures

Gold hallmarking has continued to fall at the start of 2017, dragging down overall hallmarking figures for the month of January.

Figures released by the four UK assay offices, and compiled by the Birmingham Assay Office, found there was a total of 266,613 gold articles hallmarked during the month – down 13.4% from the 307,949 pieces hallmarked in January 2016.

The high-value category saw hallmarking of 9-carat gold fall 17.8% to 173,331 pieces, while 22-carat and 14-carat fell 17.4% and 12.4%, respectively.

The performance of gold dragged the total number of hallmarked items down 4.9% – from 675,073 items in January to 2016 to 642,213.

However, all other precious metals recorded an increase in hallmarking. The number of silver and platinum pieces hallmarked increased 1.6% and 3.1%, respectively, while hallmarking of palladium soared 34.5%.