Fairtrade gold

[ps_bond]

Now that Cooksons is stocking Fairtrade gold, is there going to be an idiot guide for what is needed to (legally) add the mark to pieces made with it?

(Although is there much of an advantage in using Fairtrade over recycled???)

[Dennis]

Well I have read the stuff, but still can't be sure how your gold supply is monitored, or who applies the stamp. Perhaps Steve can give us some guidance next week?
Dennis.

[art925]

Now that Cooksons is stocking Fairtrade gold, is there going to be an idiot guide for what is needed to (legally) add the mark to pieces made with it?

(Although is there much of an advantage in using Fairtrade over recycled???)
I have found that customers are more responsive to recycled over Fairtrade. The annual fees are high and in the early days it was impossible to get your minimum amount of gold which made it even more expensive to be a registered supplier. For me Fairtrade have not done enough to market the gold but expect the maker to take the weight. Paper trails and administration blah. Maybe in the future I will look into it again, but for now recycled makes better business sense.

[SteveLAO]

As far as I'm aware, you need to be registered with the fairtrade foundation, who monitor the quantity of fairtrade material you buy. When you send it for hallmarking, in addition to the standard hallnote, you also need to fill in a fairtrade document, which will give your details, the weight of the materials used and your unique FLO number, which you will be given by the foundation. We have to give monthly reports to the foundation regarding each member and the quantity of metal they send in, so that, for example, you would easily be caught if you'd only bought 10g of fairtrade gold, and yet submitted 30g to have the fairtrade mark added!
I would recommend you contact the fairtrade foundation for further information...
I think fairtrade and recycled have their own fan bases, so not sure if one is necessarily better/more popular/more saleable than the other, but on the basis that pretty much all precious metal is recycled at one time or another, I would guess that fairtrade is probably more marketable?

[Rob Taylor]

Hi, There are two levels of participation in Fairtrade, full registration and the Small Goldsmiths scheme.

Full registration allows for the use of the FT sponsors mark and integration of the Fairtrade marketing logos etc into your marketing material, there is a cost to register.

The Small Goldsmiths scheme allows you to buy and sell FT gold but not the use of the FT sponsors mark or integrated marketing, this scheme is free (registration takes 2 minutes - www.fairgold.org).

The other half of the audit Steve refers to is we are checked to see how much we sell and to who in order to balance against what is hallmarked

As regard for which to offer? I agree with Steve, each has it's own benefits; Fairtrade is newly mined material and the Fairtrade association benefits the artisanal mining community directly (the premium is paid at source), whereas our recycled gold (I can't comment on any other) is audited as being 100% recycled

Here is our link for Fairtrade info
http://www.cooksongold.com/home/static.jsp?page=fairtrade-gold.
and here is the link for our recycled Ecogold
http://www.cooksongold.com/home/static.jsp?page=new-cookson-ecogold

rgds Rob