Quarterly Hallmarking Figures / April - June 08

HALLMARKING DECLINE CONTINUES

A combination of factors including a drop in consumer spend, high volatile metal prices and current fashion trends resulted in a major decline in hallmarking numbers for the quarter. fromApril to June 2008, compared with the previous year.

Overall 4.16 million articles were hallmarked by the four UK Assay offices, 21% less than in 2007, an even greater drop than in the first quarter when the numbers were down by 16%. The hardest hit sector continues to be gold which was down 29% with 9ct showing a decline of 830,000 articles, (32%) and even silver, which has been growing strongly was down by 7.4%.

The individual figures are as follows: