How it works at the hallmark office

There are several branches of the Assay Office in the Czech Republic, so you don't necessarily have to go to Prague as in my case. Anyway, the services provided should be the same in all branches. A list of the hallmark office branches, services provided, price lists and other information can be found on the hallmark office website: https://www.puncovniurad.cz/cz/

I chose for myself the most accessible branch in Prague in Kozí Street, I did not want to film anything inside, so I will try to describe the course of the visit at least for others. It is not necessary to make an appointment to visit the hallmark office during office hours, but it is possible to book a visit online.

Reception

I myself arrived first thing on Friday morning about 10 minutes after opening and a kilo of my reworked silver was weighing me down in my backpack see previous article: How to prepare mined black silver from water for further processing

There were 5 people in the waiting room of which 2 went to dispense and the rest including me went to receive. What I was a bit puzzled by is that part of the waiting room is a window where the lady I was discussing everything with was sitting. The whole waiting room is quite small and I would say that more than 10-15 people can't fit comfortably. So other customers can hear absolutely everything you say.

I would have expected more discretion here. In my case, I brought "only" a kilo of silver, which is not astronomical , but going there with, say, 1/2 kilo of gold, I wouldn't feel comfortable at all dealing with it around strangers.

After presenting the material, the lady at the counter will ask you what you want to do with the material you brought and further ask for an OP and enter you into the system. She will take the material and check it (for me, she tested my fused bricks with a magnet to see if they contained iron parts) and weigh it to the exact weightweights and then issues documentation (a receipt) that includes the weight, the type of metal, what is to be done with the material and the price for the service selected. But what surprised me was that nobody wanted to pay anything up front, they say you pay only when you get it out.

Next, the lady at the counter informs you when everything will be ready and when it is possible to stop by to pick up the finished ingot, for which the PO has 10 days.

Issue

After the deadline passed, I went to the PO again, but this time on Monday morning. The occupancy was about similar, but this time I went to the door for dispensing, so I didn't wait more than about 10m. Dispensing is already done here quite discreetly behind closed doors. You present your documents and OP to the lady at the counter and she issues your precious metals along with all the proper paperwork.

Here you also pay for the services performed (I paid cash), but I also saw a card terminal. After you sign the receipt and pay, you can clean up your material in the dispensing room and head home.

Attractions

I brought the material on 26.1 (Friday) and the pick-up date was set for 5.2. However, the ingot was actually finished in a few days, because the date on the log is 31.1. So it is quite possible that if you call the PU and ask, it will be possible to pick up the goods earlier.

This was also the case with 3 gold jewellery pieces where I had the purity assayed and the deadline was 30 days, but it was ready when I collected the bar (10 days).

10g of material was returned to me because of the toxic cadmium (Cd) content -it was part of the contacts from the circuit breakers, so the final weight is 985g. All the material reworked by me was accepted fine and the weight loss after smelting was about 3g per 1kg minus the returned material.

Other PU services

PU offers a myriad of precious metals services, so I also had the purity assayed on 3 gold jewellery pieces stamped (by a brand unknown to me). The price for this service is a nice 60kč and at the end you get a report with the purity found. If the jewellery submitted meets our legislation, they will even polish it for a small fee.

If in the future it comes to selling this investment ingot, anyone trying to offer you less or questioning the purity, get away from it quickly and definitely sell your investment ingot elsewhere. However, companies that deal in buying precious metals are registered with the Assay Office. So I think they have an obligation to accept the hallmarking data.

If the precious metals dealer you want to sell the ingot to is registered with the Assay Office, you can find out easily on the Assay Office website, preferably by entering the ID number here: https://www.puncovniurad.cz/cz/zlatnici.aspx

Excerpt from the hallmark office website:

What is the validity of the official findings on the purity and weight of ingots issued by the Assay Office? The official finding attached to the ingot pursuant to Section 33(1) of the Hallmarking Act is a public document pursuant to Section 8(2) of Act No. 19/1993 Coll.

This means that the information on this finding is considered correct and binding on everyone, unless proven otherwise. The onus of proving that the award contains incorrect information is on the side of the person who disputes it. Until such proof is made, the information in the award shall be presumed to be correct.

It is therefore not possible to further arbitrarily modify the test results given in the finding, e.g. by deductions from the stated purity or weight. This applies, of course, only to the condition in which the sealed safety plastic bag is intact.

How and what should be on the ingot processed and issued by the Assay Office?

Precious metal ingots are marked:

1) the official bullion mark (large or small)
2) the bullion number, i.e. the abbreviated number of the bolt
3) the purity.
4) the weight.

Ingots weighing up to 50g are marked with the ingot mark only. Ingots weighing more than 50g and up to 1500g shall be marked with the official ingot mark and the ingot number. From 1500 g onwards, the ingots shall be marked with the official ingot mark, the ingot number, the fineness and the weight.

The small bar mark shall be used only when the size and shape of the bar make the use of the large bar mark impossible. Precious metal ingots are officially sealed in PE bags with protective printing on the reverse side. A bag containing the residue of the sample after analysis is placed in the official bag alongside the ingot.

The official bag is sealed together with the official finding, which also contains the identification data of the ingot + a link to view the official ingot. The display of official characters is http://www.puncovniurad.cz/cz/znacky.aspx

Conclusion

Any searcher who has been searching for any length of time and is sure to unearth a pile of twistedof watch lids, spoons, and coins that have been through the heat and other broken silver.

This is the official way in which such an unsightly pile can be given at least some order and preserved as valuable. Overall, in both cases the lady was very pleasant and never kept me waiting long. So, if you want to use the services of PU in the future, you have nothing to worry about, it's a government institution and it's there for you.