Fineness
The measure of how much pure precious metal an alloy or a bar contains.
How to read the number
Price attaches to the mass of pure metal, so fineness translates the weight of an object into the weight of what is actually being paid for.
When the metric lies
An item and a bar of equal weight are worth different amounts: in jewellery part of the mass is alloy and workmanship, while the buy-back is settled on pure metal.
Also known as: metal purity