What Percentage of Real Gold and PM Value Buyers Paying?-

gold pins could and would be refined. low grade but it would be refined.

cascade must be the best kept secret in the country if they are refining ewaste. specifically circuit boards.

perhaps it is a confusion over terms. many people use the term refiner when the company is actually just processing the material into a metal state. and not actually refining the material into a pure metal state.



ie. the gold pins would have the gold separated from the base metal they are plated to and eventually a pure gold bar would be poured.

processing simply removes the unwanted non metallic material and most of the base metals, leaving a copper dore bar that has a very very small percentage of precious metals contained in it.

You're right I didn't make the differentiation between processor and refiner. Either works for me though. I was thinking that some of you all had sent your ewaste to a refiner rather than a middleman and was wondering what percent of spot you were getting for gold. At Cascade I knew that. When I sell scrap gold I know that. I thought it was a reasonable question. As far as Cascade doing ewaste it's heresay so far. I'll call them and see. In the 80s they did it for sure - I dealt with them many times.

Originally Posted by RecyclingSecrets

You're right I didn't make the differentiation between processor and refiner. Either works for me though. I was thinking that some of you all had sent your ewaste to a refiner rather than a middleman and was wondering what percent of spot you were getting for gold. At Cascade I knew that. When I sell scrap gold I know that. I thought it was a reasonable question. As far as Cascade doing ewaste it's heresay so far. I'll call them and see. In the 80s they did it for sure - I dealt with them many times.

well, the problem with a dore bar is getting an accurate assay from it. just for some numbers. lets say you took in 10,000 lbs of circuit boards. and the processor recovers a 1000 lb copper dore bar. and there is a whole 30 oz of gold in it. that small amount of gold will not be spread evenly. depending on when and where the sample is taken can make a huge difference in the assay you are going to paid on.

a refiner separates the metals until they have all of the gold back to a pure state. well, hopefully they know what they are doing and manage that.

what all of that means is a refiner is far more accurate and will be more likely to recover more of the pm'sthan a processor.

personally i would prefer a refiner. an honest accurate refiner. there are a few who do use the big refiners to process their material. none of them are going to be willing to discuss returns.

it is a bit difficult to imagine cascade or any processor/refiner being able to tell you how much your return should be for electronic items. there is no way they could no just how heavy or light pins had been plated. you can have an estimate, but that could be off quite a bit. too many variables.

Originally Posted by rbrooks715

well, the problem with a dore bar is getting an accurate assay from it. just for some numbers. lets say you took in 10,000 lbs of circuit boards. and the processor recovers a 1000 lb copper dore bar. and there is a whole 30 oz of gold in it. that small amount of gold will not be spread evenly. depending on when and where the sample is taken can make a huge difference in the assay you are going to paid on.

a refiner separates the metals until they have all of the gold back to a pure state. well, hopefully they know what they are doing and manage that.

what all of that means is a refiner is far more accurate and will be more likely to recover more of the pm'sthan a processor.

personally i would prefer a refiner. an honest accurate refiner. there are a few who do use the big refiners to process their material. none of them are going to be willing to discuss returns.

it is a bit difficult to imagine cascade or any processor/refiner being able to tell you how much your return should be for electronic items. there is no way they could no just how heavy or light pins had been plated. you can have an estimate, but that could be off quite a bit. too many variables.

Hi - You're right. They can only estimate before the fact. In my case I would take in scrap, they would refine, tell me how much gold they recovered and how much they would pay me for it. It was quite simple to then determine what percent of the spot price of gold they were returning to me in cash. If I went to a place that paid based on an estimate then it's a different story but that's not what I was asking. Actually, thinking through all these posts and all I realize I could do it myself. All I have to do is take the actual gold content in a given CPU, determine the number of CPUs in a pound, look at what a buyer is offering to pay per pound and compare that to the actual gold value per pound. I know that gold content varies, but at least I could see if I was getting AROUND 20% or 50% or??? Just curious and trying to figure it out. I'm really sorry I bothered you all with such a simple question. It sure did create a lot of anger, angst, suspicion and really unfriendly vibes. Later and thanks.