The festivals are here and so are the festivities! With Dhanteras and Diwali coming up, we’re all busy with our shopping escapades. Clothes and shoes, lights and lamps, sweets and gifts, gold and jewellery. Almost all of our shopping list consists of these items.
While we are experts at other areas of our shopping, very few of us pay attention to buying gold. Gold is a precious metal and there are certain reasons attributing to its high value. Gold withstands inflation, gold is valuable even during financial turmoil, gold does not deteriorate with age and time. Hence, one must pay attention when investing in gold and take note of certain things while purchasing gold jewellery.
What are the things that one should look for when buying gold? Let’s take a look:
- Check for purity
You must have heard of gold authenticity in terms of 24 karats or 22 karats. Karat is nothing but the purity percentage of gold. A 24-karat gold is purest at 99.99% while 22 karat gold is about 92% pure. You can get gold coins and gold bars at 24 karat gold; however, jewelleries are mostly made from 22 karat gold while some are made from 18 or even 14 karat gold.
Whatever be the karat, you must check for purity before you purchase gold. The BIS or Bureau of Indian Standard certifies gold with a hallmark certificate after checking for quality. It is advisable to purchase hallmarked gold to ensure purity, avoid forgery and also get a better resale value in future.
- Making charges
All jewellers include a making charge on jewellery. This charge could be anywhere between 8% to 30% of the gold cost. So, find out the making charge and bargain for a reduction on the same. Some jewellers do offer discounts on making charges, check if such discounts are available at the time of purchase.
If you only want to invest in gold and not particularly interested in buying a jewellery, then buying gold coins makes sense, here you can save on making charges.
- Know about buy back terms
Buy back means that you can exchange your current jewellery for a new one in the future. With changing trends and designs you may get bored of your old jewellery and would like to match it with the latest fashion. In such cases, having an option of buy back with your jeweller would help you in future.
- Buy from a reputed jeweller
There are millions of jewellery shops in India. Every lane may have a jewellery shop. There are small, medium and big shops selling gold, silver and diamond jewellery. The key is to purchase your precious jewellery from a reputed jeweller, so you are assured of quality and purity of gold. Small shops may sell impure gold or gold mixed with other metals and swindle you. They may even sell stolen gold, at times. A reputed jeweller will provide you with a hallmark certificate to prove its authenticity and purity.
- Check the weight of gold
In case you plan on buying gold jewellery, then don’t just blindly go with the weight mentioned on the label. Before you purchase it, weigh it in front of your eyes, so you know the actual grams of gold that you are buying. Some jewellery can have diamond or other stones studded in the design. In such case, it is a good idea to see the weight of gold and stones separately.
- Ask for bill
It goes without saying that you get a bill or receipt when you make a purchase. But it is more than important in case of gold to get a bill for your purchase, so it is legitimately proved to be yours. This bill comes in handy when you plan to sell, exchange or even bequeath your gold.
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