ebaying gold pins

Originally Posted by jghilino

nice sale on the gold pins at $170 pound, i thinks thats more money than the actual amount of gold that could be recovered, i dont think those pins would yield 1/10 ounce the pins are too large, not enough surface area

Specially when you figure out the labor percentage, the cost of consumables such as acids, energy, chemicals, etc.

There are people who will pay way over the value of gold plated pins because what they do is melt them, pour them into bars, and then sell them as "gold pin drops" for way more than what the actual gold content is.

Take this auction for example:

76 5 GR Button Melt Drop Unused Hi Grade Plated Pins Scrap Gold Recovery | eBay



The person selling this "drop" purchased pins off ebay, there are 453.5 grams to a lb, so if they paid $200.00 per lb, and they get their $99.00 for the 76.5 grams of melted pins, they are are almost making triple their money. At $200 per lb, that is right around .44 cents they are paying per gram, and they are selling at $1.29 per gram, take $1.29 and divide that by .44 = 2.9 or right around there, almost 3 times the amount they paid for the pins. This is why pins sell for crazy prices on ebay, not to refine, but to turn into another product to rip someone off for even more money. Those pins drops are less than 1% gold. I fairly recently refined gold drops for an elderly woman who had spent her savings buying them because she thought she was getting a great deal, and investing in her grand children's college future.

I can't knock the people selling the pins, but the people selling the gold drops, so far as I am concerned should be strung up by their pinky toes and beat senseless.

Scott

Originally Posted by Catfish Bob

If the pins are 1% gold then what percentage are the button drops?

Are they just melting the pins down into drops and not separating out the other material from the gold?

You said you refined some gold buttons. Did you keep track of how much gold you got compared to the weight of the button?

Thanks

The ones I have refined were less than 1%. Also consider, to refine these "gold drops" you either have to process in an electrolytic cell, which takes 4 times more acid than refining silver, or you have to melt, and atomize to create small enough material to be able to digest in acids. It cost more to process gold drops than the gold you are recovering unless you are processing a lot of material, then you might make something, but there are many other types of material you can put your money into that would allow you to actually make a profit.

Scott