Everything you need to know about Gold

When you think of gold you think of wealth. But all that looks like solid gold is not always what it seems. So beware, you could be buying a worthless piece of gold colored metal. The world is awash with fake gold, recently 83 tonnes of fake gold was discovered throughout many Chinese banks. Even JP Morgan in USA has discovered 1000 kilos of fake gold in their bank. Obviously much fake gold is circulating in jewellery.
Gold is used extensively in many industries from electronics to food to medicine. In its pure form its malleable enough for just 1 gram to be hammered into a thin sheet 1 square meter in size. One ounce of gold can be beaten into a translucent sheet 0.000018 cm thick and covering 9 square metre's; or pulled into a wire 80 km (50 miles) long.

Globally over 2400 tonnes of gold is mined each year, China is the largest gold producer at over 400 tonnes, closely followed by Australia and Russia at 330 tonnes and 280 tonnes respectively. While Canada, Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico, Ghana and Peru mine about 1400 tonnes between them.

Over 50% of gold is used in jewellery and about 25% is converted to bullion bars and coins. Electronics use about 9% while other industries including manufacturing and dentistry account for the rest.

Purity of gold is determined by 'Karat'. Bullion bars are 999.9, while jewellery is 916 (22K), 750 (18K), 585 (14K) & 375 (9K). By law all gold over 7grams of weight must be properly hallmarked by the local Assay office like Birmingham, Edinburgh, London & Sheffield below:

In addition there must be a lion and/or purity stamp

Any gold sold in the UK and most of western world above a certain weight must carry these type of hallmarks. Otherwise it should be advertised and sold as 'yellow metal' only.
Having said that, unfortunately its almost as if the law on hallmarking has vanished. A large percentage of gold jewellery on sale especially online shops like Ebay, Spotify etc is fake! The advert may read 18k gold and have markings claimed to be haalmarks, but its not. More like jewellers brass with a couple microns 18k gold plating and a so called hallmark that just says 14k or 585. Give it a few months and the gold plating's gone and down to brass!

If buying gold as an investment only buy genuine bullion bars/coins from reputable and registered dealers.
But if buying gold as jewellery, then there is an alternative which is lower in price and fast becoming very popular. Filled Gold and referred to as 'FG'. Not only does it look, feel and wear as solid gold, its stronger. Which with necklaces and other chains is a great advantage in strength. The base metal is commonly silver or jewellers brass though stainless steel is far better. Unlike gold plated the amount of gold its covered in is solid and very heavy (see image below) and will never wear away. At half the price of solid gold, filled gold jewellery has fast become preferred by many, even celebrities. Though again, beware as we have noticed recently a lot of so called 'gold filled' jewellery items on places like Ebay that are in fact only gold plated!
REMEMBER if the price seems to good to be true, its not gold.
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