TANSTAAFL

As a local independent jewellery valuer, I see all sorts of unusual items & this year has been no exception.

I see unusual Georgian & Victorian pieces as well as modern designer items, both from the UK & abroad, this is my meat & drink and one of the main reasons I love both my job & the trade as a whole.

Occasionally however I come across scams & these make my blood boil, The jewellery & silver trade is a beautiful place to work, not that well paid but ultimately very satisfying.

I have come across two scams so far this year and its only the second week of February, this post is about one, I'll get to the other in a later post, this one is of more immediate concern.

I work in a great little village, nearly a town in the Midlands and there is a local Serviced Office complex a few hundred yards from my office. One of the residents rang me and asked if I could examine a ring he had just bought on Ebay as "it smelled funny".

Now I have been a jeweller for over 40 years and never considered smelling jewellery as a test, acid testing or electronic testing the metals yes, Refractive index etc. on gem stones but smelling is a new one on me, however I agreed to pop over & take a look.

Ugly looking brute isn't it, beauty is however in the eye of the beholder, but it is stamped "18k" & "750" & weighing 11.6 grams. so if 18ct gold it scraps for a smidgin under £280.00.

My potential client had paid £265.00 so got a pretty good deal.

Unfortunately the ring is not gold at all, despite the Ebay description which I append below.

Item specifics

Condition:	Used: An item that has been previously worn. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections. See all condition definitions	Material:	Gold
Gold Type:	Yellow Gold	Gold Quality:	18 Carat

18 Ct gold mens ring, Ideal for investment.

Now that is very bad and not a little illegal. The law reads that it is illegal to describe an article as Gold, Silver or Platinum unless it is hallmarked or exempt. A common exception is an item weighing less than 1 gram, as this weighed over 11 grams that did not apply.

As you can see from the image, it is stamped but that is not a hallmark, under magnification just how crude the markings are is revealed. In fact I don't think it is stamped at all, I think the marks have been cast when the ring was made.

Anyway, the good news is that I agreed to test the ring and show that it was not any sort of gold, never mind a purported 18ct gold, write a report so that my client could get his money refunded from Paypal.

I had a very similar ring in my "naughty" collection showcase just outside my office and was able to show what a con this was, I got mine a few years ago when a popular con around Loughborough was to flag motorists down with a petrol can & a stopped car offering to exchange "gold rings" for enough money to get some petrol. The cons were being carried out by persons of an Eastern European persuasion, I had thought however that the police warnings at the time had closed these down. How wrong I was.

On the 30th of January this year I got the following email from Leicestershire Police,

Leicestershire Police has issued a warning to the public after two motorists were the victims of a scam.

Police have received two reports of motorists travelling on the M69 being approached in a layby at junction 2 by a man who claimed he had ran out of fuel and didn’t have any cash to pay for more.

During both incidents he asked for money in exchange for some gold jewellery. Following the exchange the victims have checked the jewellery and realised it was not genuine.

During the first incident the man was driving a light blue vehicle and the second incident involved a red Vauxhall estate.

PC Steve Morley of the Force’s contact management centre, said: “The man sounded very plausible and assured the victims that he would get in touch the following day and return the money but gave them some gold jewellery in the meantime which wasn’t genuine.

Clearly the con is still being perpetuated and the conners have also moved on to trying Ebay as well, a very quick check on that site found two more similar rings being offered for sale.

Moral of this story, There Aint No such Thing As A Free Lunch, and if you are considering a jewellery purchase on an auction site, get a professional valuer to check it out first, Never Buy jewellery from a man at the side of the road.