U.S. Marking & Stamping Regulations

Disclosing Gold Content • Disclosing Silver Content • Disclosing Platinum Content • Disclosing Rhodium Coatings • Multi-Metal Pieces

The legal standards for stamping and marking fine jewelry, along with base-metal jewelry either bonded or plated with precious metals, are primarily based on two sources that act in combination.

1. The National Gold and Silver Stamping Act, enacted in 1906 and amended several times since, regulates how gold and silver jewelry should be stamped with quality marks and trademarks. Violating the act can mean forfeiting merchandise, paying monetary penalties, and serving jail time. It also allows competitors and jewelry trade associations to bring lawsuits against any violators.

2. The Federal Trade Commission’s Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries establish the standards that the federal agency applies to claims made by jewelers in all marketing materials, including labeling, advertising, and other merchandising. For updates, contact MJSA or visit the ftc.gov or the Jewelers Vigilance Committee websites.

Despite popular belief, U.S. law does not require makers of precious metal jewelry to stamp an item with its precious metal content. The law does require the following:

• If a manufacturer uses the term "gold," "silver," "sterling" or "platinum" to describe a product, then the manufacturer must disclose the precious metal content-unless the precious metal content is pure or almost pure. See below for specific rules about disclosing precious metal content.

• If a jewelry maker wants to stamp jewelry by its quality or "fineness" (e.g., "14 gold," "925 sterling silver," or "950 platinum"), then, in addition to the fineness stamp, the maker must stamp the metal with its federally registered trademark. This second stamp, which should be in proximity to the quality mark, indicates that the maker is liable for the amount of precious metal the jewelry contains.

Here are basic practices you need to know-and do-to be compliant with the guides for specific precious metals.

• Gold jewelry in the United States is traditionally described by its karatage. Only items that are pure gold can be identified solely as "gold." If gold is combined with any other alloying element, the amount of gold in the piece must be disclosed. In the United States, that generally means describing gold as 22k, 18k, 14k, and 10k.

For many years, an alloy below 10k could not be described as karat gold in the United States. However, in July 2018 the FTC dropped that threshold, saying that sellers could use gold terms to describe a product (or part thereof) composed throughout of gold alloy, regardless of karat, if they qualify the term with equally conspicuous, accurate karat fineness disclosure. How this change came to be and its potential impact on consumers and the jewelry is explored in "Karat Concerns," an MJSA Journal article available in the MJSA Online Library. (Note: This article is available only MJSA members, who will be asked to enter a member ID and password. For assistance, please e-mail MJSA Customer Service Manager Betty Costa.)

• How accurate must karatage be? Legally, karat gold can be under karat by no more than three parts per thousand of gold. A piece containing solder is an exception: It can be below karat by up to seven parts per thousand.

• When determining the quantity (by weight) of gold in karat gold items, you need not include specific components that are exempted by the FTC guides. They include "springs, posts, and separable backs of lapel buttons, posts and nuts for attaching interchangeable ornaments, metallic parts completely and permanently encased in a nonmetallic covering, field pieces and bezels for lockets, and wire pegs or rivets used for applying mountings and other ornaments."

• If a piece is either bonded to gold to or plated with gold, there are specific descriptions that can be used, based on the layer’s weight (in the case of bonded metals) or the thickness of its plating.

Gold filled (GF)/gold overlay (GO)/rolled gold plate (RGP): A layer of at least 10k gold is bonded to all surfaces by mechanical means, and the weight of the gold is a minimum of 1/20 of the total weight of the metal. The karat quality of the gold layer must be identified (e.g., "10k gold filled").
Gold overlay/rolled gold plate: A layer of mechanically bonded gold that is less than 1/20 of the total weight of the metal but not less than 1/40 of the total weight. These gold-layered items must be described with the fraction, karatage, and type (e.g., "1/40 10k RGP" or "1/40 10k gold overlay").

Heavy gold electroplate(d)/HGE: A layer of gold that has a minimum thickness of 100 millionths of an inch (e.g., "10k HGE").
Gold plate: A layer of at least 10k gold that has a minimum thickness of 0.175 micron/7 millionths of an inch (e.g., "14k gold plate").
Gold electroplate(d)/GEP: A layer of at least 10k gold that has a minimum thickness throughout of 0.175 micron/7 millionths of an inch (e.g., "14k GEP").
Vermeil: A layer of gold over sterling silver that has a minimum thickness throughout of 100 millionths of an inch. The karat quality of the gold can be added but is not required (e.g., "10k vermeil").

In the case of sterling and white gold, because in this case the metals are the same color, the karatage must be accompanied by a fraction representing the proportion of the weight of the gold to the entire weight of the metal in the article (e.g., "Sterling and 1/5 14k" or "1/2 14k Sterling").

• The FTC guides also list specific exemptions for items that combine silver and gold: "joints, catches, screws, pin stems, pins of scarf pins, hat pins, etc., posts and separable backs of lapel buttons, springs, and metallic parts completely and permanently encased in a nonmetallic covering."

• Sterling silver: These pieces must contain at least 925 parts per thousand by weight of pure silver. In addition to "sterling silver," acceptable terms include "solid silver," "sterling," and "Ster." How accurate must your description be? Legally, it cannot be off by more than four parts per thousand by weight of silver, except if the piece contains solder. Then it can be off by 10 parts per thousand.

• Coin silver: These pieces must contain no less than 900 parts per thousand by weight of pure silver. Such pieces cannot be marked as sterling silver, but both "coin" and "coin silver" are acceptable. The tolerances for accuracy for coin silver are the same as for sterling silver. Coin silver lacks whiteness, compared to sterling. With the exception of its appropriateness for reticulation, coin silver is not used commercially for jewelry.

• Note: As of July 2018, the term "silver" can be used to describe a product or part composed throughout of an alloy containing less than 900 parts per thousand, as long as the term is accompanied by an equally conspicuous, accurate designation of the item’s silver content.

• Silver coatings and platings: The FTC guides state that silver coatings must be disclosed. The purity of the coating must also be disclosed if it is under 925 parts per thousand. (e.g., "sterling silver plated," "750 silver plated.") The guides provide no minimum thickness requirements, as they do with gold coverings; instead they state that "all significant surfaces of athe product or part contain a plating or coating of silver that is of reasonable durability." When determining this, the amount of wear to which a surface will be subjected must be considered.

• The FTC guides offer the following exemptions when determining the quantity (by weight) in a silver item: "screws, rivets, springs, spring pins for wrist watch straps; posts and separable backs of lapel buttons; wire pegs, posts, and nuts used for applying mountings or other ornaments, which mountings or ornaments shall be of the quality marked; pin stems (e.g., of badges, brooches, emblem pins, hat pins, and scarf pins, etc.); levers for belt buckles; blades and skeletons of pocket knives; field pieces and bezels for lockets; bracelet and necklace snap tongues; any other joints, catches, or screws; and metallic parts completely and permanently encased in a nonmetallic covering."

• Alloys containing at least 950 parts per thousand of platinum: This jewelry can be marked or described as platinum with no qualifications, though it is also fine to state its platinum content. Other metals used don’t have to be listed.

• Alloys containing at least 850 and less than 950 parts per thousand of platinum: This jewelry can be marked platinum, but the parts per thousand of platinum must be listed.

• Alloys containing at least 500 and less than 850 parts per thousand of platinum, and at least 950 parts per thousand of platinum group metals (PGMs): This jewelry can be described and marked platinum, or an abbreviation, but the name and amount of each platinum group metal must be indicated (e.g., "600Pt./350Ir."; "550Plat./350Ru./50Irid."). Note: Abbreviation, punctuation, and spacing style can vary.

• Alloys containing at least 500 and less than 850 parts per thousand of platinum, and less than 950 parts per thousand of PGMs, and base metals (such as copper and cobalt): This jewelry can be marked platinum, but the amount of each metal alloy also must be included in the marking (e.g., "600Pt./300Co./100Cu."; "500Plat./300Co./200Cu").

• Alloys containing less than 500 parts per thousand of platinum: These jewelry products may not be marked or called platinum.

• When determining the quantity (by weight) of platinum in an item, you need not include specific components that are exempted by the FTC guides. They include "springs, winding bars, sleeves, crown cores, mechanical joint pins, screws, rivets, dust bands, detachable movement rims, hat-pin stems, and bracelet and necklace snap tongues." 

• As of July 2018, the FTC Guides state that it is "unfair or deceptive to fail to disclose a surface-layer application of rhodium on products marked or described as precious metal." This includes rhodium-plated silver or white gold items.

• A section added to the FTC Guides in 2018 states that "it is unfair or deceptive to misrepresent the relative quantity of each precious metal in a product that contains more than one precious metal." The Guides provide the example of using "Platinum Silver" to describe a product that contains more silver than platinum by weight. Instead, companies are advised to list precious metals in the order of their relative weight, from greatest to least. For example, the Jewelers Vigilance Committee says that a product that is made up of primarily sterling silver with 14k gold accents should be described with the sterling silver before the gold ("Sterling 14k").

• However, metals can be listed in a different order as long as it is made clear that the first metal listed is not predominant, such as "14k gold-accented silver."

Click here to read the full text of the FTC’s Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries.