The buying begins

It now seems that the upward trend for hallmarking figures is gaining strength. Across the four major assay offices in the UK, the total number of items hallmarked in the first quarter of this year was up by 23 per cent, compared with the same period the previous year.

The best performers were 9ct gold which was up 31.5 per cent to 175,803 articles, and sterling silver was up 21 per cent to 194,231 articles. Surely the best news the industry has had in years.

Putting together the news section of a trade magazine in recession years is a depressing task. Quarter after quarter, trade bodies, audit firms and pollsters provide nothing but a barrage of press releases explaining just how bad the situation is, with bleak predictions about how much lower the economy is going to sink.

That’s why one has to avoid the temptation to talk about how great things are just because there is a flicker of light in the monthly GDP figures. For some months, and I said this in my editor’s letter a few issues ago, the jewellery industry was experiencing an excruciating lag time: employment was up, the economy was growing, and still there was no sign of life in hallmarking figures that had been plummeting for a decade.

Now, at long last, the evidence is clear: the jewellery industry is back in growth mode. And just as things get moving again, there are new top-level figures taking the chairs of the BJA and the NAG; apprenticeships are about to get more coherent than they’ve ever been; the BRC is reporting upbeat retail figures in the round; and, though a small thing, it looks like the EU is about to cap fees on in-shop card payments – more money left for the bottom line.

All we need now is a scorching summer, and the sound of tills ringing may well be the abiding feature of 2014.