When buying jewelry

According to the law, each and every piece of jewelry should have a visible stamp with the quantity of pure gold included in it. It should also have a distinct cachet that allows us to know the manufacturers identity and details. The quantity of gold should be indicated in mm. When a piece of jewelry is labeled of 18 carats, it should have the mark 750 on it, meaning that the percentage of pure gold in its alloy is of 750 to 1000. In Greece, the law allows qualities lower than 750. For example, if a piece of jewelry has a cachet of 585, it means that it is of 14 carats and the percent of the alloy in pure gold is of 585 to 1000. Therefore one needs to be very careful when buying gold, always ask for the title of the jewelry and check the stamp which guarantees its quality. The board of the E.U. has passed a law for the protection of the consumer-buyer of gold products and the harmonization of the value of the gold in the European countries. Therefore, besides the mark of the gold percent, your jewelry should have the number code of its manufacturer. In Greece, for Athens and Piraeus, the code is one letter and one number, while for the rest of Greece it is two numbers. This code is received by every manufacturer from the jewelry chamber to which he belongs to and is a unique code which is exclusively his.