I bought over 200 pounds of jewelry.

I bought this as junk jewelry from a place that is now out of business. It was a cash for gold type mail in business. You throw your jewelry and anything else you think is gold/silver in a bag and mail it in. When the company gets the bag they toss everything not gold/silver in a box (I bought those boxes) and then they send a check for the gold/silver to the bag sender. Through some google research that check is usually 10-20% the value of the metal. BBB rating F minus minus.

Two years ago I bought over 300 pounds from the same person. I went through every single piece and found a LOT of AU, AG & GF. I knew the owner had more so every 6 months or so I would send a short text that I was still interested. Well fast foreward. Out of the blue he text me and is moving and wants to sell the rest. I bought the 200 pounds, he had maybe 325 total but wanted more than I wanted to spend. So I made an offer on about two thirds and he accepted.

Well to make a long story shorter, I am going through every piece and pulling out lots of little pieces of gold-silver-gold filled. I am also separating the broken junk jewelry in one box and the nice costume in another box. I have already sold, on ebay, 6 pounds of junk jewelry as MIXED CRAFT JEWELRY. I am starting 3 lb auctions at $35.00 with BIN for $50.00

I know most of this is gold colored, might even be gold plated. If I packaged this in 3 pound lots and sold it for SCRAP GOLD RECOVERY do you think it would be worthwhile for someone to buy and try to extract gold? I would keep the same price unless you think it is worth more.

Why don't you just send it to a trusted member and get them to refine it if you think it's worth as much as you're charging?

That way you'd both win. Just a suggestion, unless of course you're not convinced of the value of the PMs within the product.

spaceships said:

Why don't you just send it to a trusted member and get them to refine it if you think it's worth as much as you're charging?

That way you'd both win. Just a suggestion, unless of course you're not convinced of the value of the PMs within the product.

Click to expand...

I have no idea this is worth processing, that is why I am asking. I do not know how much yellow colored costume jewelry really has gold plating.

cyberdan said:

I am starting 3 lb auctions at $35.00 with BIN for $50.00

Click to expand...

I would list a few lots of maybe 5 pounds with a starting bid of $.99 and see where it goes. Describe the contents as best you can and let the bidders decide what it is worth. I have seen lots of junk plated jewelry that were only worth a few dollars in gold sell for a couple hundred dollars. Feebay bidders are not very smart it seems when it comes to the yellow stuff and they will pay stupid prices for nothing. A good example of what im talking about would be the infamous "gold drops". For 15-20 grams of gold plated copper there were fools paying sometimes 3 figures for this stuff, even when the seller described in full detail what was up for bid. :roll:

its-all-a-lie said:

cyberdan said:

I am starting 3 lb auctions at $35.00 with BIN for $50.00

Click to expand...

I would list a few lots of maybe 5 pounds with a starting bid of $.99 and see where it goes. Describe the contents as best you can and let the bidders decide what it is worth. I have seen lots of junk plated jewelry that were only worth a few dollars in gold sell for a couple hundred dollars. Feebay bidders are not very smart it seems when it comes to the yellow stuff and they will pay stupid prices for nothing. A good example of what im talking about would be the infamous "gold drops". For 15-20 grams of gold plated copper there were fools paying sometimes 3 figures for this stuff, even when the seller described in full detail what was up for bid. :roll:

Click to expand...

not a bad idea, might do that this weekend. I need to take better pics. I will keep it at 3 pounds because that fills a small priority mail box.

I wouldn't advertise it as being for gold recovery or refining though. As was said, just describe the contents as accurately as you can and let the buyers decide what it's worth.

rickbb said:

I wouldn't advertise it as being for gold recovery or refining though. As was said, just describe the contents as accurately as you can and let the buyers decide what it's worth.

Click to expand...

honesty is always the best policy !

Nice . my suggestion is to process a sample of the gold plated stuff and the gold filled stuff. the process I'd suggest is to melt the material down with a bit of scrap copper and stir w/ a graphite rod. Then pour into a shallow container. Put it into a CuSO4/H2SO4 parting cell and electrorefine the copper to remove it. the zinc is dissolved in the acid so an excess might be needed. the slimes on the bottom are washed with water and dissolved in HCl/CuCl2
to remove remaining base metals. then, dissolve the silver in nitric acid then the gold can be dissolved in AR.

Rougemillenial said:

Nice . my suggestion is to process a sample of the gold plated stuff and the gold filled stuff. the process I'd suggest is to melt the material down with a bit of scrap copper and stir w/ a graphite rod. Then pour into a shallow container. Put it into a CuSO4/H2SO4 parting cell and electrorefine the copper to remove it. the zinc is dissolved in the acid so an excess might be needed. the slimes on the bottom are washed with water and dissolved in HCl/CuCl2
to remove remaining base metals. then, dissolve the silver in nitric acid then the gold can be dissolved in AR.

Click to expand...

I hate to be so abrupt, but I think that your entire recommendation has zero merit. I would suggest you think about this more thoroughly. What would be your second choice?

I would be interested to hear different methods to process this kind of mixed/unknown grade material. Sorry Rougemillenial but I think I agree with Goldsilverpro that your suggestion is not the way to go....

If I were to attempt to process something like this I would probably start by dumping everything into AP and see which pieces release foils. When a reasonable amount of foils are visible I would filter them out, and then separate out the remaining pieces which show no visible change; these I would process as gold filled by inquartation followed by nitric. The stuff which is releasing foils is plated so can go back into the AP to finish off.

What do others think?

I dont' know if anyone else noticed, but this is a three year old thread...so I imagine any responses are purely hypothetical at this point.

Since all the gold is on the surface, I would definitely use a process that would strip the gold from the base metal. Personally, I would use cyanide/peroxide but that isn't very accessible to the amateur. Second choice would be the sulfuric acid stripper, but only if I had the ability to tumble the parts. I certainly wouldn't use a process that would dissolve the base metal or put it through a copper cell. Too much work for a small amount of gold. The best choice might be to sell it as is, since it looks a lot better than what it would yield.

One time, we had at least two 30 gallon drums of Swank gold plated jewelry manufacturing waste that we stripped in cyanide using a portable cement mixer. At least 1000 pounds. If I remember right, one guy had it all stripped and zinced out in one 8 hr. day.

goldsilverpro said:

Rougemillenial said:

Nice . my suggestion is to process a sample of the gold plated stuff and the gold filled stuff. the process I'd suggest is to melt the material down with a bit of scrap copper and stir w/ a graphite rod. Then pour into a shallow container. Put it into a CuSO4/H2SO4 parting cell and electrorefine the copper to remove it. the zinc is dissolved in the acid so an excess might be needed. the slimes on the bottom are washed with water and dissolved in HCl/CuCl2
to remove remaining base metals. then, dissolve the silver in nitric acid then the gold can be dissolved in AR.

Click to expand...

I hate to be so abrupt, but I think that your entire recommendation has zero merit. I would suggest you think about this more thoroughly. What would be your second choice?

Click to expand...

Being an experianced chemist and having tried this myself, it does indeed work if the base metals are high in copper. Though if it's not the method you'd want to use, acidic dissolution is the way to go for filled items. Acidic base removal will not work for plated items. You'd have to use cyanide or a sulfuric acid cell. The issue with acidic dissolution of base metals in plated items is that the plating is sometimes so fine that it will mostly go into solution as colloidal gold. Not to mention the amount of waste would be enormous. You'd end up spending way more money disposing of gallons of toxic waste than your yield's value. That's if you get any yield at all. There are multiple methods that can be used though I'd highly suggest separating plated from filled items. Good luck! :mrgreen: :G

What's a pound of costume yield even?A gram? Half a gram?

Topher_osAUrus said:

What's a pound of costume yield even?A gram? Half a gram?

Click to expand...

it depends on the ware of each item.
I pay about £20 a kilo and it works out to about 1g a kilo in the long run..

Rougemillenial said:

goldsilverpro said:

Rougemillenial said:

Nice . my suggestion is to process a sample of the gold plated stuff and the gold filled stuff. the process I'd suggest is to melt the material down with a bit of scrap copper and stir w/ a graphite rod. Then pour into a shallow container. Put it into a CuSO4/H2SO4 parting cell and electrorefine the copper to remove it. the zinc is dissolved in the acid so an excess might be needed. the slimes on the bottom are washed with water and dissolved in HCl/CuCl2
to remove remaining base metals. then, dissolve the silver in nitric acid then the gold can be dissolved in AR.

Click to expand...

I hate to be so abrupt, but I think that your entire recommendation has zero merit. I would suggest you think about this more thoroughly. What would be your second choice?

Click to expand...

Being an experianced chemist and having tried this myself, it does indeed work if the base metals are high in copper. Though if it's not the method you'd want to use, acidic dissolution is the way to go for filled items. Acidic base removal will not work for plated items. You'd have to use cyanide or a sulfuric acid cell. The issue with acidic dissolution of base metals in plated items is that the plating is sometimes so fine that it will mostly go into solution as colloidal gold. Not to mention the amount of waste would be enormous. You'd end up spending way more money disposing of gallons of toxic waste than your yield's value. That's if you get any yield at all. There are multiple methods that can be used though I'd highly suggest separating plated from filled items. Good luck! :mrgreen: :G

Click to expand...

If the base metal is high in copper...which it rarely is. Much more common is brass, bronze, nickel, zinc, steel. Costume jewelry has to be made to a price point, so they use base metals that behave well for casting/forming. Copper tends to oxidize too regularly in the melting process.

Not to say you couldn't melt then flux out all the metals lower than copper, but I have a feeling you'd be adding quite a bit of copper.

Most gold plated costume jewelry is copper base = brass, bronze, German silver, which are all copper alloys. That's what "copper base" means in this context. I don't think I've ever seen pure copper used for plated costume jewelry.

I think we are discussing the same thing. By copper based, you mean a copper alloy...but by mostly copper, I meant 95%+ so that it will work in a copper refining cell without fluxing out the junk at smelt.

I have seen pure copper base on costume jewelry, but it's almost always been repousse. Usually early artisan work, when silver is accessible but gold is still too expensive.

Copper alloys used in costume jewelry are nowhere near 95% copper content. Not even close.

snoman701 said:

I think we are discussing the same thing. By copper based, you mean a copper alloy...but by mostly copper, I meant 95%+ so that it will work in a copper refining cell without fluxing out the junk at smelt.

I have seen pure copper base on costume jewelry, but it's almost always been repousse. Usually early artisan work, when silver is accessible but gold is still too expensive.

Click to expand...

I have seen hand made plated jewellery from India made form copper.
It is when they use what ever scrap metal or wire they can find.
only the odd bit though,mass produced items will always be an alloy as they can be tailored to the needs of production.
The only economical way to process I have seen is a large drum mixer and one of the cyanide methods.