Trading Standards & Assay Office

Several joint visits have been completed by Trading Standards and the Assay Office Sheffield. Our understanding is that this is a national campaign to identify and reduce the number of retailers who are advertising precious metals incorrectly. From the visits and telephone calls completed, if an item has any fineness mark stamped, it must also display an Assay Stamp according to Trading Standards, even if the fineness mark was not approved. The TSO have stated this may mislead the consumer and therefore will need an Assay stamp. We are aware that three of our members have been visited, two of which have been revisited, both of which removed all non-hallmarked items which resulted in no further action by TSO.