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999.9, or 24K — how pure the metal is, stamped on the bar.
Also known as: Numbers stamped on a gold bar, Bullion purity mark
A number giving parts per thousand of the precious metal. It is the one mark on a bar that carries a claim rather than an identity, and it is the reason bars also carry an assayer's name: the number means nothing without someone answerable for it.
A numeral giving the fineness of a precious-metal bar or coin in parts per thousand — 999.9 for four-nines gold — or, for gold, in carats out of twenty-four.
Contexts: Jewellery
Accompanied by an assayer's or refiner's mark, because the figure is a claim and the mark says who is making it. A fineness figure with no attributable assayer is worth exactly as much as the assertion of whoever struck it.
The same figure means the same thing on a bar, a coin and a piece of jewellery, which is unusual: the fineness scale is one of the few marks in this catalogue that crosses object types unchanged.
A group of numerals, often three nines and a decimal, stamped into a flat metal face beside a maker's name and a weight.
Both express precious-metal purity in parts per thousand.