Hallmark, Tejabi, Chhapawal: How to Read Gold Purity in a Nepali Shop

The vocabulary of a Nepali gold counter is small and old, and it assumes you already know it. Nobody explains it, because everybody in the trade learned it before they learned to write a bill. If you are on the other side of the glass, here is what the words mean.

Purity, and the two ways of writing it

Gold purity is expressed either in carats out of 24, or in parts per thousand, which is called fineness.

• 24 carat is pure gold, 999 or better in fineness.
• 22 carat is 22 parts gold to 2 parts other metal, about 916 fine. This is the ornament standard across South Asia.
• 18 carat is 750 fine, and turns up mostly in stone-set and imported designs.

If you have ever seen 916 stamped inside a bangle, that is 22 carat written the other way round.

Why your bangle is not 24 carat

Because it would not survive being worn. Pure gold is soft enough to mark with a fingernail, and it will not hold a clasp, a prong or a sharp edge. The other two parts in 22-carat gold, usually copper and silver, are what make an ornament something you can put on a child and then not think about again.

This is the most common misunderstanding at a counter. A customer asks for the purest gold available and means it as a demand for quality. In an ornament, it is closer to a request for something that will bend.

The three words on the board

Chhapawal

Literally, the stamped one. In market usage this is the high-purity gold at the top of the published rate, the metal traded as metal, and the benchmark that everything else is priced against.

Tejabi

Refined gold, quoted a little below chhapawal on the same board. The gap between the two is usually modest and fairly stable. Both are gold. They are not the same grade, and a bill should say which one it is charging you for.

Hallmark

This is the word that causes the most confusion, because it is not a purity grade at all. A hallmark is a mark of verification, a stamp saying that an independent body has assayed the piece and found it to be the fineness it claims. In Nepal that verification sits with the Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology.

So hallmarked gold does not mean purer gold. It means gold whose purity somebody other than the seller has certified. That is a different promise, and in most situations a more useful one.

What a hallmark does not tell you

It says nothing about the making charges, nothing about the design, and nothing about whether the weight on your bill is the weight of gold rather than gold plus stones. It certifies one thing precisely, which is exactly why it is worth having. Treat it as a floor, not as a complete answer.

Questions worth asking, in order

1. What carat is this piece, and is it marked?
2. Is it hallmarked, and by whom?
3. What is the gross weight, and what is the net gold weight?
4. What rate is being applied, and is it today's?
5. What are the making charges, and are they a percentage or a fixed amount per gram?

Five questions. A shop that answers all five without hesitating is a shop worth going back to, and most of them will.