Jewelry Authentication not considering vintage jewelry purity standards
I am posting this because of how black and white the jewelry authenticity is operating. There needs to be some gray area for vintage jewelry before strict standards existed. I post this as reference in the hopes that someone in ebay leadership will read it.
National Gold and Silver Marking Act
On October 1, 1981, revised Section 295 of Volume 15 of the United States Code, the law governing requirements for gold and silver marking, , which is commonly known as the National Gold and Silver Marking Act, went into effect. Originally enacted in 1906, this law never required one to indicate quality. However, if quality was affirmatively disclosed, it had to be accurate within one half Karat (without solder) or one Karat (with solder, article assayed in its entirely) from the disclosed mark. Criminal sanctions could be imposed for violations.
In 1961, this Act was amended to require the additional disclosures of the name or registered trademark of the firm responsible for the quality guaranty. This law was amended in 1970 to provide for civil penalties via private legal action.
Now, the fineness tolerances for gold articles are considerably tightened. Signed into law in 1976 and effective on October 1, 1981, Section 295 was revised to further regulate precious metal standards by more stringently specifying the proportion of gold with and without solder, making gold as good as gold.
Since October 1 has passed, the following stricter requirements apply. In the case of gold or any of its alloys imported, exported, or transported through interstate commerce, actual fineness shall not be less by more than 3/1000ths parts (without solder) or 7/1000ths parts (with solder taken into account).
While the law requires that gold and silver carrying a quality mark also carry the registered trademark of the person or organization responsible for the guarantee of quality, there is no United States law requiring that gold or silver be quality marked in the first place. If a quality mark appears, so must the trademark. Whereas a quality mark alone is meaningless, the appearance of a trademark serves to assign the responsibility for fraudulent quality marks.
A quality mark represents the stated standard. The presence of the manufacture’s trademark is an important assurance that the ration of gold to alloy as represented by a stamp on the article is accurate, thus making it conform with the law. On the pragmatic level, such a measure is valuable primarily to distributors and retailers who can hold the manufacturer responsible in case a quality mark is found to be an exaggeration, thereby relieving themselves from responsibility in the chain of distribution. If, however, a quality mark is unaccompanied by a manufacturer’s trademark, it is the distributor and/or retailer who will be held accountable for having passed fraudulently marked goods onto the public.
A trademark is an assurance of quality. It is a permanent record of origin and an assumption of responsibility. It is clearly for the benefit of both distributors and retailers to make certain that each and every gold and silver item purchased is inscribed with a quality mark and is inscribed with a trademark, in accordance with the law. IMPORTANT: The application of this mark is required to be identical to the means used in applying the quality mark, and must be at least as large as and positioned as close as possible to the quality mark.
Requiring that manufacturers remain wholly accountable for the quality of their gold and silver items, this law offers distributors and retailers a degree of assurance in the value of their products. Since tolerance standards are much higher than before, there may be a particular urge on the part of some members of our industry to bypass the requirements of signature presence on their gold and silver goods. Anyone who wants to keep his own standards high should remain alert, demanding that others do not try to side-step the law.
The Federal Trade Commission’s Guides for the Jewelry Industry contain additional prohibitions of which industry members should be aware. JVC members have copies of the National Gold and Silver Marking Act, as well as our recommendations for revision of the current Guides, which we submitted on January 8, 1981. Reference to these Guides and the Stamping Act is advised for full understanding of the law.
idealgems1
·8 months agoOf course. My second point was that a registered trademark is about the law in addition to the reputation of the manufacturer.
Authentication is entirely a marketing tool, because presumably the entire point is to increase buyers' confidence, thereby driving more sales. I'm pretty sure that it does not come from the largess of eBay.
idealgems1
·8 months agoI agree with @tobaccocardyahoo for the most part. An uniformed buyer that is relying on the authentication doesn't care about the nuance of the stamp of a vintage piece, and an informed buyer will understand it and not be bothered by the test result. I have had two pieces come back as being underkarated, and in both cases salvaged the sale by giving the buyer an explanation that we relied on the karat stamp; and that we would offer a partial refund for the difference in the value of the gold of the test vs. the marking.
I disagree with some of your assertions on trademarks, though. A registered trademark is filed with the trademark and copyright office. Our brick-and-mortar store manufactured jewelry, and our trademark was registered. It would have technically been illegal for us to stamp a piece "14K" without stamping it with our trademark as well (after 1981), but perfectly legal for us to sell it with no stamp at all.
It turns out, though, customers do not like to buy expensive solid gold jewelry unless it is karat stamped. A further complication was that the law was widely referred to as the "plumb gold law"; "plumb" in the sense that it is accurate or true. Many manufacturers started stamping their products with a trademark plus the stamp "14KP", indicating that it was manufactured to the plumb law standard...and giving retailers like us many headaches from our customers who insisted that it must stand for 14K plated! But the bottom line, is that with a registered trademark plus a karat stamp, there would be a way to track back the manufacturer and punish those who were cheating on the gold content; and indeed, the law did clean up the rampant underkarating of gold. A registered trademark needed to be re-registered every ten years.
So, yes; a trademark is just a reflection on the reputation of the company, but a registered trademark also has legal implications. In our case it also offered marketing opportunities, as our print ads and letterhead had our trademark (distinct from our logo) with the tagline of "The Trademark of Fine Award Winning Designs".
tobaccocardyahoo
·8 months agoAuthentication is not about the law. It is about an assurance that the terms of the contract are being met.
Enforcement of other legal requirements other than trademark infringement are the responsibility of the government.
Authentication may be more of a marketing tool than an enforcement method.
tobaccocardyahoo
·8 months agoGiven the history of impurities, it seems essential that the authentication process be more rigid rather than less rigid.
Otherwise, authentication is worthless.
Some items are suited for in person selling where the buyer has knowledge of the seller which exceeds that which is available online.
As for your claims for trademarks, a trademark carries no meaning other than that associated with the reputation of the trademark owner, and some trademark owners are unreliable, undependable, and untrustworthy.
bigbearfindery
·8 months agoI agree, it also seems that they acid test and they can't distinguish between 14.01K and 17.99K gold since they only use 14k and 18K acid. If you can't be more precise than that then you're less accurate than an old fineness marking. They will test 17.9K and report it as "No less than 14K". The authentication creates more gray area where it should eliminate it.