Silver Scrap - Page 2

I will update this thread as things change. I am currently in the process of outfitting my new facility, getting the proper permits and licensing, etc. Until I am up and running I will not be purchasing silver scrap unless a contract becomes available for a ongoing stream, which in that case I will make an exception.

I am looking for a regular steady stream of silver scrap.

I'll update this as I progress with my current facility set. If you have any questions, please message me.



Thank you everyone,

Scott

Originally Posted by miked

I have getting various types of lab equipment from state auctions. Is there anything you are aware of I should be looking for in that lab equipment? Mike

Yes, indeed. Platinum crucibles, I picked on up off ebay for a few bucks, it was just over 28 grams of Platinum.

There are also other crucibles you can hope to find. A lot of times the people who box, crate, palatalize the equipment to be auctioned, pay little to no attention to little tiny metal cups that look like tin, or other items of note and value as well.

Besides that, the equipment has a real value for people like myself, I use a good bit of lab equipment, and glass. You should really post some of those items for sale here so that when people like me need something, we make this our go-to spot prior to searching elsewhere. The majority of my lab equipment is used, I hate spending more for things than I need and a lot of times the older lab equipment is just simply better made.

Post pictures, please, I am interested in seeing what you have to say the very least.



Scott

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

What are you paying for silver plated stuff?

Unfortunately silver plated items are only really worth the underlying metal to someone like myself, but let me explain why so you understand.

Silver currently is at .55 cents per gram. One gram of silver will plate many, many, many items. The electrolysis required to separate the silver from the base metal would cost more, than the actual silver recovered. Now that's not to say it has no value at all, because it does if you have large quantities. For example, once you have accumulated a large quantity of silver plated over copper, you can send it to a copper refiner. What they do is melt everything into a homogenous alloy, then process it in a copper electrolytic cell which precludes the need for operating the cell as a de-plating cell. The reason this is cost effective is because once you have accumulated large amounts of copper, you start accumulating small amounts of the impurities involved in copper, such as gold.

But we are talking about thousands of lbs.

I almost never process silver plate, although I have done so to familiarize myself with the process. What I usually do is re-plate it and sell it on ebay, or if I have something that is gold plated, I strip the gold plating and re-plate in silver and sell on ebay, or craigslist, etc. Silver and copper for that matter, have incredible antibacterial/microbial properties, that's why being born with a silver spoon in your mouth gives you such a great start in life. Or why back when people didn't have refrigerators, they put a silver coin in their milk.

Scott

What about circuit breaker parts? Are they still of interest to you? I was in the process of getting information from you before you went away for a while.

I wish you would be willing to toll refine I have a big bag (probably 45 lbs) of Sun Microsystems UltraSparc IIIi and IIi processors from a job I did this year. It's hard to find reliable refiners.

Originally Posted by MattInTheHat

What about circuit breaker parts? Are they still of interest to you? I was in the process of getting information from you before you went away for a while.

Silver contacts? All day long, matter of fact I get a bit of work from NTR metals, because they will not run anything with Cadmium, and I have a safe way of processing, and accumulating cadmium as an insoluble salt so it's not in a toxic form. If you know the percentages, and they are like contacts, then I can pay you out directly for them once I assay a small amount, but if not it's dicey, and needs to be processed and assayed.

What do you currently have?

Scott

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

I wish you would be willing to toll refine I have a big bag (probably 45 lbs) of Sun Microsystems UltraSparc IIIi and IIi processors from a job I did this year. It's hard to find reliable refiners.

I toll refine only in special circumstances, the reason being is that regardless of whatever is recovered, it's almost always certain that the person you are toll refining for will feel there is more gold in their material than there actually is. Even refiners often make the mistake of believing there is far more value in the material they are processing than there actually is.

Why not go ahead and post pictures, even if I don't do your material, I most likely do know someone who is honest, and will give you a fair recovery.

Scott

Originally Posted by Otto

This doesn't look right. I think you meant .55 dollars per gram.

Yes, 55 cents, I automatically place the decimal to prevent confusion, but you are right. It's 55 cents or .55 of a dollar.

Scott

I will be adding to my profile at some point. I now make custom jewelery out of some of the metals I recover and refine. I have been making alloys for jewelers, some unique like silver/palladium alloys. The metals jewelers use have small amounts of impurities specially in karat gold and sterling silver. I refine to high purity, and only alloy with metals I have personally refined so my impurities are brought drastically down to .001 of the total. When I refine jewelry I retain the stones and re-use them in the jewelery I design and make. For expensive stones I have them GIA certified. The concept is to take recycled metals and stones, and turn them into something special all the way from one end of the process to the other. This isn't a sales pitch, at least not yet. If interested or curious I will be adding to my profile as I said, with pictures etc. This will not be for a few months yet, as I am already swamped with requests, and I want to put up a website prior to actually offering this service.

Are you currently buying any material?

I am, however I am going to be leaving right at New Years for about two weeks, I will be out of the country. But I am purchasing material depending on what it is and the price of course.

What do you currently have?

Just curious if you were buying any electronic scrap to refine or only scrap gold and silver jewelry. I have an assortment of material from gold fingered ram, to old to5 transistors with gold plating, to silver contacts. Just curious what material you were interested in working with...

If you could send me pictures of what you have, I am interested in all of it. Specially the contacts. To be fair on the silver contacts though, it's often difficult to know exactly what the yields will be due to the fact they vary so greatly. Some have more silver than other metals, some are alloyed with Cadmium which makes them more difficult and dangerous to handle and process. Are they all similar? Or are they a mix of contacts and do you know the actual alloy percentages?

Scott