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Craft · 22 July 2026

Hallmarks and Assay: How Anyone Proves Gold Is Gold

A hallmark is one of the oldest consumer protection technologies in continuous use. It is also, on close inspection, a small masterpiece of institutional design — and it is being quietly erode…

Yusuf Demir · 12 min read

Industry · 6 August 2026

The Scrap Trade

…e responds to price faster than mine output can. · Scrap is priced off spot, adjusted for assayed fineness, then discounted for testing, refining, transport and each intermediary's margin. · High-street payouts commonly land well below spot for the contained gold; specialist refi…

Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read

Craft · 5 June 2026

The Alchemy of Craft: What Goldsmiths Know That Machines Don't

…per cent by mass, stamped 750 in the millesimal system that most of the world now uses on hallmarks. Fourteen karat is 585. Nine karat, common in Britain, is 375 — more alloy than gold, and a source of long-standing argument about what may honestly be called a gold ring. · The al…

Yusuf Demir · 11 min read

Science · 9 August 2026

The Metallurgy of Karat

…t the alloying partners, not about purity. · Is 9k gold real gold? Yes, and it is legally hallmarkable as gold in the UK and much of the Commonwealth, though not in countries whose minimum standard is 14k or higher. At 37.5% gold it is harder and cheaper than 18k, with a paler co…

Tomas Herrera · 16 min read

Industry · 7 August 2026

How Fake Gold Is Detected

…the mint's tolerances are tighter than a counterfeiter's economics usually allow. · Fire assay remains the legal reference method; every non-destructive technique is a proxy calibrated against it. · Does a magnet test prove gold is real? It disproves some fakes and proves nothin…

Tomas Herrera · 15 min read

Industry · 2 July 2026

Nine Nines: Inside a Modern Gold Refinery

…is two-stage: fast chlorination to ~99.5%, then electrolysis to 99.99% and above. · Fire assay, a technique older than the periodic table, remains the referee method for purity. · Good Delivery accreditation governs which bars trade without re-assay in the wholesale market. · Pr…

Tomas Herrera · 12 min read

Craft · 3 August 2026

The Wedding-Season Bid: How Jewellery Demand Sets the Floor

…ondon price are the clearest real-time read on Asian physical appetite. · Import duty and hallmarking rules move demand between the formal and informal trade more than they move total consumption. · Why is Indian jewellery usually 22 karat? Because it is bought partly as stored v…

Yusuf Demir · 16 min read

Markets · 8 August 2026

Moving Bullion: The Logistics Nobody Prices

…at leaves the chain — held privately, for example — can re-enter, but normally only after assay or re-refining, because the guarantee rests on continuous custody rather than on the bar itself. · Why do London and New York prices diverge? Because the two markets trade different th…

Ingrid Sørensen · 17 min read

Markets · 20 June 2026

Bring It Home: Central Banks and the Great Gold Repatriation

…Gold in a domestic vault a thousand miles from the settlement system must be shipped, re-assayed if its bars are not Good Delivery, and re-entered into the chain of custody before it can do anything at all. · Domestic vault capacity is the binding constraint on repatriation. Bui…

Ingrid Sørensen · 13 min read

History · 14 July 2026

The Gold Standard: How a Soft Yellow Metal Became Money

…didate for money has a history; gold has only a location. Attributed to a Bank of England assayer, 1931 · Density does the rest of the work. At 19.3 grams per cubic centimetre gold is nearly twice as dense as lead, which means a merchant could carry a year's income in a belt rath…

Marguerite Adler · 14 min read

Science · 8 August 2026

The Metal That Went Medical

…change is the instrument Most analytical techniques need a reader. Aggregation-based gold assays need an eye. If a biological binding event can be made to pull particles together or hold them apart, the result is a visible red-to-blue transition — a measurement anyone can perform…

Amara Okonjo · 15 min read

Mining · 5 August 2026

Grade, Cut-off and the Arithmetic of an Open Pit

…per tonne is one part per million — the metal is invisible in the rock and is detected by assay, not by eye. · What is cut-off grade? The lowest grade at which a tonne of rock generates more revenue than it costs to process. Rock above it is ore and goes to the mill; rock below i…

Amara Okonjo · 16 min read

Industry · 4 August 2026

The Gold Inside Your Phone

…und one gram of gold per tonne. Populated circuit boards from consumer equipment commonly assay in the hundreds of grams per tonne, and dense telecom and computing hardware can run higher still. In grade terms, a container of scrap boards is a spectacular orebody that arrives pre…

Tomas Herrera · 15 min read

Mining · 22 May 2026

The Other Supply Chain: Artisanal Mining and the Mercury Problem

…but because the form does not describe him. · They tell us to become legal. I went to the office three times. Each time it was a different list. Meanwhile the buyer at the road pays cash today and asks nothing. Miner, West Africa · Where formalisation has worked, it has generally…

Amara Okonjo · 12 min read

Industry · 28 July 2026

Urban Mining: The Richest Gold Ore on Earth Is in Your Old Phone

…f those conditions. The deposit is a few grams at a time, in a drawer, in a garage, in an office refit skip, in a container heading to a port. The metallurgy was solved decades ago. The problem is that the ore has to be persuaded to arrive. · Manual pre-sorting at a recovery plan…

Tomas Herrera · 13 min read

Markets · 6 August 2026

Why Central Banks Started Buying Gold Again

…ower-fineness bars into current Good Delivery specification so they are tradeable without assay disputes. · Why the reported numbers lag Official reserve statistics are self-reported, published with a delay, and in several jurisdictions revised long after the fact. Some purchases…

Ingrid Sørensen · 17 min read

Industry · 7 August 2026

After the Cyanide

Every ounce of mined gold leaves behind roughly a tonne of processed rock and the water that carried it. What happens to that material after the last shift is the part of the industry with the longest…

Tomas Herrera · 17 min read

History · 9 August 2026

The Hoard Problem: What Buried Gold Actually Tells Us

A field of gold torcs and coins is a spectacular find and a treacherous document. The people who buried it were not writing to us, and the reasons they had for putting it in the ground are exactly wha…

Marguerite Adler · 16 min read

Science · 10 August 2026

Where Gold Actually Comes From

Every gram of gold on Earth was manufactured in an astrophysical catastrophe, arrived here after the planet had already formed, and was then concentrated by hot water. Three separate accidents, none o…

Tomas Herrera · 18 min read

Markets · 2 August 2026

Who Actually Sets the Gold Price

There is no single gold price. There is a London settlement number, a New York futures curve, a Shanghai premium and a jeweller's counter in Dubai — and the distance between them is where the market l…

Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read

Policies · 6 August 2026

Editorial Standards & Corrections

…conclusions. · 3. Sourcing and verification · Primary documents first: filings, permits, assay certificates, customs data, central bank statistical releases, court records and audited accounts outrank commentary about them. · Two-source rule: a contested factual claim central to…

Policies · 6 August 2026

Financial Disclaimer

…rospectus, not the ticker. · Physical dealing: coins and small bars carry dealer spreads, assay risk, counterfeit risk, storage cost and, in some jurisdictions, sales tax. The 'spot price' is not the price at which a retail buyer transacts. · Fraud: precious metals attract a pers…