Recently, according to foreign media reports, the Perth Mint, Australia's oldest mint, has been exposed for adulterating its gold products with other metals.

This act of forgery has caused an uproar, and there are even rumors that some of the gold was sold to China.

Although the Shanghai Exchange subsequently denied purchasing the counterfeit gold, for the general public, when buying gold, whether for collection or investment, it is important to be aware of the risks involved.

How should we buy it?

01, "Forgery"

The Perth Mint, established at the end of the 19th century, is the world's largest gold processing plant. It is understood that the mint is also the only gold mint in the world with government guarantees.

The CEO of the mint admitted that some of the mint's gold products did indeed have the problem of adulteration, but not all products exhibit this phenomenon.

He also acknowledged that the scandal has caused significant damage to the mint's historical reputation and credibility, and has also had a negative impact on the credibility of the Australian government.

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It was revealed that the mint has been using methods of adulterating with other metals to produce gold products for five years in order to save costs. In 2022, the mint shipped nearly 20 billion Australian dollars worth of gold products worldwide, and it is currently uncertain whether or how much of this type of gold product has appeared in the Chinese market.

02, Track RecordAlthough the practice of alloying gold with other metals is acceptable within the industry, for refiners who purchase large quantities of gold products, their losses are substantial. This is because the presence of other metallic impurities in gold products significantly reduces the purity of gold, which is an unacceptable situation for buyers who seek high gold purity.

In 2021, signs of adulteration at the mint began to emerge. One of the mint's largest buyers reported an excessive content of silver in the gold products, leading to insufficient gold purity and not meeting the mint's production standards.

At that time, the mint initiated an internal investigation and to some extent, halted the adulteration practices.

However, by the end of September of the same year, the mint's CEO stated in a routine meeting that they would only provide proof of qualified purity to customers, leaving the issue of subsequent unqualified tests to be resolved by the buyers themselves.

Ultimately, they were both concerned about the trouble and unwilling to bear the additional expense of 9 billion Australian dollars required for it.

But it was the exposure of such events that affected the confidence of gold buyers worldwide.

03, Decline in Gold Prices

It is well known that Chinese people have a preference for purchasing gold. Some do it for personal adornment, some give it as gifts to family and friends, and others buy gold for collection and investment.

Especially in recent years, as countries around the world have been printing money excessively, inflation has been rising. Buying gold to hedge against inflation aligns with the traditional views of many people.

In the past few months, we have also noticed that the gold reserve data published by the People's Bank of China has been continuously increasing, indicating that our country's central bank is also increasing its holdings of gold.At the same time, recently the price of gold has shown a noticeable decline. The international gold price currently stands at $1820, which is a significant drop from the near $2000 it reached at the beginning of February. This has led many ordinary people to consider buying gold as an opportunity.

However, is there a risk of inadvertently purchasing adulterated gold?

04, Solution

In fact, the method is quite straightforward.

Since most ordinary people buy gold not for wearing but for collecting and investing, it is better to buy paper gold rather than physical gold. Purchasing gold jewelry requires paying a substantial amount of additional fees on top of the base gold price, including design and craftsmanship fees. However, there are no such fees when buying paper gold.

Moreover, when reselling physical gold, there are additional costs and some loss due to wear and tear, but paper gold is much more convenient and does not have these resale costs.

Most importantly, if a merchant adulterates the gold with a very small amount of impurities, it is impossible for ordinary people to identify, whereas buying paper gold can effectively avoid this kind of loss.