In the picture below I have removed the silver contacts from an oven thermostat from a pre - electronic electric range. The contacts are solid buttons not plated, it's my estimate from an electric range there is over an ounce of silver if you include the thermostats from the heating elements.

Gus, it seems to me these silver contacts are in all kinds of devices. Today, I found some in a dishwasher relay and in the power switch for a monitor. It got me to thinking that there might be some money to be made out of them. Personally, I'm not interested in playing with chemicals to extract the silver. I would rather just sell the contacts. There are a few people selling silver electrical contacts on Ebay in lots of around a pound to a bit more. From their pictures, it looks like they managed to remove the actual contacts from the substrates. I don't know how they would go about this since the ones I've seen so far are riveted onto aluminum or brass substrates. I've read that the contacts contain cadmium, so it's probably not a good idea to be cutting them and putting dust into the air. Any feedback on this issue would be appreciated.