Imitation gold flooding market, causing headaches to consumers

Vietnamese people startled at the information that imitation gold has appeared on the market. The serious problem is that the imitation gold cannot be discovered with modern machines.

A representative from the Vietnam Gold Business Association has confirmed that the association’s members have reported the appearance of imitation gold in Vietnam. Goldsmith shop owners say that they have received offers to sell bullion gold from some dealers from Hong Kong.

When they put the sample products into gold tester, the tester confirmed that these were 9999 gold. However, when they cut the gold bars, they found out that the gold was friable, while it was not pliable like normal 9999 gold. After rendering the gold bars, they found out that the bars only contained 60-75 percent of gold, and had some sediment like fine sand particles which they thought volfram.

According to the Saigon Fine Arts Jewelry Association, the technical division of DC Technology Company has received a complaint from a client about the flooding of imitation gold on the west of the southern region and in HCM City.

After testing the gold samples brought by the client, DC Company came to the conclusion that the gold products contain some additional metals belonging to Platinium group which includes some elements Pt (Platin), Pd (Paladi), Ir (Iridi), Os (Osmi), Ru (Ruthenium), Rh (Rodi).

DC has confirmed that normal spectrometers cannot measure the purity of these gold products which contain such substances. Dau tu has quoted DC representative as saying that DC has succeeded in developing the database that allows recognizing and measuring the relative concentrations of elements for theXRF5000 machine. Also according to the representative, other existing spectrometers cannot do that.

According to Tran Trong Quoc Khanh, Director of the Asia Commercial Bank’s Gold Center, the imitation gold can appear in two kinds: either the volfram bar is put in the middle of the gold bullion, or vofram powder was put into molten gold which was then made into gold bars. These products can easily “go through” XRF, the gold purity measuring machine which is using advanced technology.

The problem is that this kind of machine can only allow measuring the gold purity on the surface of the products; therefore, it is difficult to discover frauds. Meanwhile, most of gold trading shops are not capable enough to equip with the machines which allow measuring gold purity with fire assay technology.

Nguyen Thi Cuc, Deputy General Director of the Phu Nhuan Jewelry Company PNJ, said that one month ago, PNJ also discovered imitation gold from the sample products provided by some dealers from Hong Kong. “As we have modern machines, we could discover the imitation. The gold with volfram mixture will not be able to produce jewelry products,” Cuc said.

She went on to say that consumers should be cautious when purchasing and should only purchase the products with well-known brands.

Meanwhile, local newspapers have quoted some analysts as saying that the imitation gold products might have been imported from China or Hong Kong.

In the latest news, Tien phong on May 19, quoted Vu Duc Loi from the Vietnam Institute of Chemistry under the Institute of Science and Technology of Vietnam as saying, “that the compound which was used to make imitation gold was not volfram. He has affirmed that the main elements of the heavy powder are Ruthenni, Iridi and Osmi.” – Vietnamnet

Tags: vietnam gold, Vietnam gold market, Vietnam gold prices