Assay question for Steve LAO

[pearlescence]

Hi
I made a fused ring with bits of vermeil scrap. It turned out a sort of blush yellow colour, really nice. how would it be assayed, Steve, if at all? Is there enough gold in there to take the silver below 925? There isn't enough gold, that's for sure. I guess it is a sort of electrum?
I'd like to do more of these but not sure how to sort out the assay office and if can't be marked would like to have the proper answer ready if trading standards ask!
Thanks

[SteveLAO]

Hi there, vermeil is just a fancy name for gold plated silver so I would be surprised if there were sufficient "gold" for it to go below the 925 requirement. However, the only way to know for sure is to send a piece in and have it assayed. May I suggest before you make a load of stuff with this metal though, that you send one piece in first to make sure? It would be a shame if it did fail and you'd made a whole range! It really depends I guess on how much silver there was in the 925 part to begin with. If it was a borderline pass, then that little bit of gold may make it a borderline fail..do you see what I mean?

[pearlescence]

Thanks Steve
If it fails as 925 would it be unlawful to describe it as electrum and sell with no assay? I don't want to breach the Hallmarking Acts or make a false trade description!

[SteveLAO]

If it does fail 925 it can be marked 800 and you can still sell as silver, though not as sterling silver. I'll do a wee bit of research regarding using "electrum" as a description and get back to you!

[pearlescence]

can I do the Hallnote to say hopefully 925 and if not 800? Since I am using scrap the mix will vary from piece to piece...? More gold relatively when using thin wire than using a big broken clasp bits, for eg.
In any case it is enough to clearly change the colour
being different is clearly tricky!

[SteveLAO]

Being different is what it's all about!!
On the hallnote just write in the special instructions bit.."Please mark as found" and then you'll get whatever it turns out to be!
Regarding electrum....as it is "a description indicating that it is wholly or partly made of gold, silver, platinum or palladium" (quote from the hallmarking act)....then I don't think you can call it electrum without having a hallmark on it I'm afraid.

[pearlescence]

It will certainly attain 800 so if it is marked as 800 I can call it electrum. It just sounds so fabulous and historical . It's a great word (Which bit of which Act applies - used to be a lawyer!)
And electrum is a mix of silver and gold, yes. no specific proportions or anything?

[SteveLAO]

I'm just checking now exactly how you can describe it assuming you have it hallmarked......we need to get this right! I agree it's a cool word and bound to be a talking point! Stand by for further info as I get it!!

The issue relates to the Hallmarking Act 1973 and here is the relevant piece from it:
"Subject to the provisions of this Act, any person, who in the course of a trade or business, applies to an unhallmarked article a description indicating that it is wholly or partly made of gold, silver, platinum or palladium or supplies or offer to supply an article to which such a description has been applied shall be guilty of an offence"

What I am trying now to confirm is whether the word "electrum" on it's own is a description indicating that it is wholly or partly made of gold, silver etc and whether you need to describe the fineness too.....it's all rather complicated, but also a great challenge for me!!

[SteveLAO]

ooookkkkkk, so here's what I've found:

Electrum is a description of a naturally occurring precious metal alloy containing predominately gold and silver in the mixture split roughly 20/80 with the gold OR silver being the majority element. There is also a bit of copper and other elements thrown in too ( I know that'll make it over 100 which is why I say "roughly" !). As a result, with the very small amount of gold recovered from the plating of your vermeil item, there wouldn't be anything like a minimum 20% gold in the resulting alloy to enable you to describe it as being electrum.

However, it's also an old term for "green gold" and so you would also fall foul of the hallmarking act in this instance too as you wouldn't get a minimum 375 gold if it came in for hallmarking either!

So: because there is no definitive "formula" for the alloy it would be extremely difficult to describe anything as being made of electrum and not fall foul of modern regulations and laws including trades descriptions as well as hallmarking regs.....probably why no-one uses it any more!

I would therefore recommend that you send in your items for hallmarking in the usual way, list as "please mark as found", and sell it in the usual way. You would only be able to use the word "electrum" if the alloy mix was definitively listed somewhere and you were able to mix your alloy to comply with the ingredients and that would be assuming the mix complied with current hallmarking regs and the word was recognised by the British hallmarking Council as an acceptable description for the purposes of the act!

[pearlescence]

Thanks Steve. That kills it as electrum then..unless I add a dollop more of gold..but then it would not be the same subtle colour. It's a pity Or....I can add some fine silver which should ensure 925 and call it electrum silver....
how do you think the Hallmarking council would feel about electrum-ish?
I suppose the first step is to send in what I have now and see how that assays.
Apparently it is used for the hilts of the lightsabres of high ranking and accomplished jedi and sith. SO THERE!

[SteveLAO]

Don't think you can use it as a description at all I'm afraid as there's no definitive formula :( Fortunately jedi and sith are in a galaxy far far away and so will be out of the reach of UK laws :)

[pearlescence]

That seems such a shame. How do I get that changed? It is such a lovely word, so redolent of history and precious metals....
In any case thank you for your help (do you also do the twitter @LondonAssay ?)

[SteveLAO]

Yeah sorry about that :( not sure how you could get that changed.....it's just not a recognised description as its just so vague I think...
no, I'm not the tweeter here...that's the marketing dept :)

[pearlescence]

I suppose that if I did want to make authentic electrum 80/20 silver gold it would have to be fine silver and 24ct gold
so...if I did how would that be marked?
800 silver would be okay presumably..what about the gold because there would presumably be enough to require hallmarking
Now that's another query - the ring is quite small, the gold will be under the required weight threshold and so is the silver content so it doesn't actually have to be marked...oinly voluntary.

[SteveLAO]

Yes if your ring is under the 7.78g for silver then it doesn't need marking.

This is the thing with electrum...what is authentic? with no "formula" who knows?? If you look back in history there have been several different % mixtures. If it only had 20% gold in an alloy mix you wouldn't get a gold mark, and if the rest of the alloy mix was 80% silver then all you'd get in total is an 800 silver hallmark. If the mix was 40% gold and 60% silver, then you'd have sufficient gold in the alloy to get a 9ct hallmark. You would be far better to keep the gold and silver apart...make something using the two metals separately and not mixed into one alloy and then you'd get a silver and a gold hallmark!!!
remember that electrum in an alloy....not two separate metals......

[pearlescence]

Much thanks for all your responses today Steve. Much appreciated.
I do do the silver base with applied gold thing and get the added gold mark.
I think I'll send in the prototype for 'what is it assay' and see if it makes 925, then take it from there.

[SteveLAO]

no problem...my pleasure :)

Yep, send it in and let's see what it gets :)

[pearlescence]

Not immediately, I have a pile of festive stuff to make and get ready (every year I mean to be ready in plenty of time and then...)