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Hello Scrap World, I'm an Electrical Industrial Contractor in South Jersey and looking for a facility to take precious metals to be proccessed.
Does anyone know of a place in the South Jersey or Philadelphia that deal with walk in customers with small ammounts? After watching an episode of Meltdown I was amazed
of how many things I have scrapped as light iron not to go through the trouble of taking it appart. So I would appreciate any help.
Thanks and Happy Hollidays!!!!
this may sound rude but, it isn't meant to be. first welcome to the SMF. here you will find all the answers or most of them anyway. They are in what is called the Archives in the upper right corner of the page. It is where the real answers are. turn off the TV and read one hour per night. there is about 10% reality and 90% B.S. in those "reality" shows.
Don't know what you mean by small amounts. Haven't heard of any smelter that takes "small" amounts.
Not sure what you mean by "smelter", refiner ? processor? foundry ? and what kind of material.
you might get more response if you give us a little introduction.
most of us here are pretty old school soooo, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you. I would include one more but I have no idea how to spell it.
Etack, and NobleMetalWorks are two members to talk to about this. they can help you understand the process so you know what questions to ask.
Just a warning, they can get a little aggressive at times, but that is because with the stuff they do a small mistake can be deadly or extremely expensive.
try the gold refining forum, good place to start
There again, do a bunch of reading before you start asking questions, their not quite as polite as we are. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by jghilino
Not rude at all. Thanks for the input and I will take your advice in continuing my research. I'm willing to put the hard work in.
Happy Holidays!!!!
Welcome to smf and as stated read,read,read its a free education !!
As far as the show you spoke of there are alot of steps that are left out to get to a final refined product that they do not show you. One guy on there , Dave, is a member of the gold refining forum. Good guy and knows his stuff. He has even said that because of time constraints a lot is left on the cutting room floor.
Buyer beware when it comes to refiners. We have a couple here that are honest and have good reps.
Good luck and happy studying
Keep in mind when sourcing for someone to refine your material, that small lots do not allow for any profit so far as the refiner is concerned, unless they are truly high value lots.
If for example, you have enough material that would produce 1 ounces of gold, which is actually a lot of electronic scrap if we are talking about gold, and the refiner only charges 10 percent of the entire yield, they are only making 120+ dollars for their work, and that before the cost of acids and other consumables. It is always better when thinking about processing material, to have more rather than less.
GRF (Gold Refining Forum) is a great place to look for someone who might be interested in processing your material, but if you do not have very much be very careful who you have process it. A lot of times if the person is not very experienced, they will gladly take your material with every intention of processing it for you, just like they have promised, but after doing so they realize they are not making any money at all, but in fact loosing money instead. This causes some people to act in ways that are not acceptable by you, the person who requested the material to be refined.
If the amounts you have to process are indeed small, you might want to think instead of selling those small lots on ebay, or posting on craigslist, or even on GRF for someone to purchase. People who refine may pay more for the material because they are adding it to other material and processing far larger amounts after accumulating enough to make it profitable and worthwhile.
So as I see it, really you have two options available to you, if your intention is to recover the values in your material that is made up of precious metals. Either collect large amounts to be processed yourself by a reputable refiner, or sell it to someone, outright, who is accumulating large lots. If you do decide to sell instead of having the material refined I would post here, GRF, Craigslist and consider doing so on ebay as well.
Scott
I have seen the show and it is entertaining. But certainly all BS. We touch this on a "Storage Wars" thread. On the show Storage Wars, people buy old storage lockers and find all kinds of great things. Later on, one of the personalities sued A&E (the station) alleging that they planted the "great" items they found just for the show and when he blew the whistle, they kicked him off the show. All of the people on the reality TV shows are not making money from the metals, auctions, ect.. the real way they survive is by the money the show producers pay them to be on the show and make good TV.Quote:
Originally Posted by olddude
These shows are actually BAD for what we do. When people watch an auction show, every donkey in the world goes out and tries to make a quick buck buying auctions. The same thing will happen with buying scrap metal like on the show we are discussing, eating any profit that may have been there.
As far as small refiners like on TV, you are going to find that the same reasoning applies. These guys are making money by being part of the show, not actually buying.
Just like OldDude posted, there is no short cuts. You should turn off the TV and spend some time reading.