Buying karat scrap

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resabed01

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 6, 2009
Messages
467
Location
Alberta
I'm thinking of shifting a bit from e-scrap to buying & refining karat gold & sterling. I want to do this with small volumes but who knows what could happen in the future. What would be reasonable pay-outs? Of course I'd want to compete with the cashforgold places but I don't want my margins too slim.
Being as some members here process karat gold I'd like to ask.... what's your payouts on gold, sterling and PGMs? Do you process yourself or send some or all off to a refinery? Sorry for asking such basic questions but I wanted to hear from members what worked for you and what didn't. Thanks.
 
I'm in the Uk, i pay 91% of what i can get from the place i scrap out at in london. At this percentage i am paying more than cash 4 gold places and can beat any local jeweller around me.
Check out your local jewellers, test them with some gold to see what they pay, work out the percentage they are paying, then you pay slightly better.
All my scrap has been sold as is, not refined
 
Hey! I can tell you all about what doesn't work LOL! When it comes to the refining the scrap you buy out of a store, here's the pros and cons: If you send your scrap out to someone else, they are going to get the silver, copper and anything else that is in the gold which could include pgms. That's additional profit you can't afford to lose, if you're running a store. Next, if you send your scrap out to get refined by someone else, here's the returns you should expect: 10k-39%, 12k-47%, 14k-55% and about 73% for 18 karat. Those will be the numbers you'll have to base the stores buys on in order to buy profitably. Back to the benefit of refining though, if you refine it yourself you're going to get return percentages that are much closer to where they should be. But, there's another problem that will pop up when selling the gold you refined yourself to the larger refiners. When you send in pure gold, there is no silver in it for them, no pgms in it for them, no copper in it for them. That's where they make their money and how they can pay the 97-98% of spot that they do. A lousy 1-2% of what you sent in is all they get. It'll take weeks to get that lot back because there's no money in it for them. In my experiene, those lots took as long as 6 weeks to get back vs. 10 days when sending in karat scrap thats profitable for them. I won't deny the possibility that they could push it through quickly since it will be easy and they can get it out of the way in a hurry but, I wouldn't bet on it. I'm fortunate enough to have an NTR close by so I can run it in, scan it, sell it and run back to the bank with it. The payouts there are 98% gold, 90% silver and I think 95% on pgms. I guess to answer your question in short, refine it yourself and find the buyer that will turn it most quickly and honestly for you. If I can help out any more with this, let me know. I've made more than enough mistakes to know what definitely doesn't work and why. I'm more than happy to share those experiences with someone thinking about opening their own store.
 
Greg,

NTR is paying 95% on Silver and 90% on the PGM's. The whole key to making a profit is knowing exactly what you are buying. This requires equipment that is not cheap. What the future brings is more regulation. In Texas, you now must have a License, take pictures and report to the local police or Leeds on Line, hold it for 10 days. Soon, the Refiners will only be able to buy from License Holders so lots of little guys are going to get squeezed out. Lots of work for little profit. Lots of down side risk as we all have seen in the last couple of weeks. The easy money days are over.

Dan
 
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