N e w s

Now jewellery marks will be easily recognizable. Besides, they will be more fake-proof. Sealing of a gold ring would cost about 15 roubles to an individual.

Russian State Assay Office has introduced new assay marks for jewellery. They are proudly called the marks of 2000 and are dated for the 300th anniversary of Assay Supervision in Russia. So far the innovation concerns only the 585 assay gold jewellery. After the probation period the new seals will be stamped on silver, platinum and palladium jewellery.

The reason for such a change was that the traditional way of stamping was not as secure - the print was quite simple and easy to counterfeit. The sealing tools were handmade at Saint Petersburg Mint and therefore differed slightly from one another. This created even more complications for assay supervision inspections as they could not always tell their own seal from a fake one.

Now the tools will be produced automatically at Moscow Mint, which, according to the chief assay officer of State Assay Office Pavel Zavjalov, will provide complete identity of the tools.

The seals themselves will be smaller in size than the old ones by 1.5 times. First, they will be harder to counterfeit. Second, this will make possible sealing of finer and lighter articles mechanically, which is more effective than laser sealing. In case of laser the seal is not very stable and can be rubbed off.

The new seals will be very easily recognizable. An assay mark of a girl in the national kokoshik was introduced in Russia in 1908. Later jewellery was sealed with a star. But after the collapse of USSR the mark was used by other CIS countries and in 1994 Russia had to return to the image of a girl. However, this time the girl will be different. According to P. Zavjalov, the new image is set at a slightly different angle and while the previous one was schematic, now all the image details will be clean-cut and recognizable. The specialists did comment on further details as they want it to remain their secter to protect the seal from fakes.

The specialists say that despite all the innovations the cost of sealing will not rise. Thus, for an individual sealing of a gold article would cost 15 roubles and 5 roubles for silver.

It needs to noted that according to Russian legislation all jewellery produced in and imported to Russia, must ungergo all necessary probation and be sealed with an assay mark. The state holds the monopoly on probing and sealing. It is of interest that Russian citizens often use such services. Thus, in 1999 sealed were 7.3 million of gold and 5.6 million of silver articles, among them - 300 thousand and 270 thousand respectively of articles belonging to individual owners. While previously people mostly sealed family jewellery, now the tendency is toward sealing of jewellery purchased overseas.

Maria Ignatova