How do you people find Karat scrap?

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I find most of my karat scrap at estate sales, garage/yard sales, flea markets, junk stores, thrift/pawn shops, etc. For shops I visit regularly, I've built relationships with people that work there. They know what I like to buy, and sometimes they'll set things aside for me because they know I come in all the time. It pays to be friendly and just listen to people jabber. Even if you don't have any interest in their stories or whatever, just be friendly and chat with them. People love to talk about themselves, and just being a good listener tells them that you're friendly. If you're perceived a friendly person, it's funny how people will go out of their way to help you.
 
lekjaz said:
I find most of my karat scrap at estate sales, garage/yard sales, flea markets, junk stores, thrift/pawn shops, etc. For shops I visit regularly, I've built relationships with people that work there. They know what I like to buy, and sometimes they'll set things aside for me because they know I come in all the time. It pays to be friendly and just listen to people jabber. Even if you don't have any interest in their stories or whatever, just be friendly and chat with them. People love to talk about themselves, and just being a good listener tells them that you're friendly. If you're perceived a friendly person, it's funny how people will go out of their way to help you.
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Wisdom. :)
 
lekjaz wrote: ↑July 22nd, 2020, 12:35 pm
I find most of my karat scrap at estate sales, garage/yard sales, flea markets, junk stores, thrift/pawn shops, etc. For shops I visit regularly, I've built relationships with people that work there. They know what I like to buy, and sometimes they'll set things aside for me because they know I come in all the time. It pays to be friendly and just listen to people jabber. Even if you don't have any interest in their stories or whatever, just be friendly and chat with them. People love to talk about themselves, and just being a good listener tells them that you're friendly. If you're perceived a friendly person, it's funny how people will go out of their way to help you.
Wisdom. :)

all should seek wisdom. one word. simple. direct. it is so accurate for today.
Mark thank you Glorycloud
 
Hello @Puff501, I hear you brother.

I was looking and searching throughout the forum for ideas and recommendations when I got to this thread.

The stage of our lives is similar, and so are the reasons for embarking in this hobby.

I dedicated mostly of 2019 to learn. I started ferociously watching videos from Mr. Sreetips (Kadriver), then I bought a beautiful hardcover version of "The Book", got a couple more books, dusted off my Uni archives and started to practice, transitioning from blacksmithing (previous hobby) to smelting and pouring a myriad of metals to practice.
This year I immersed myself in practicing. Many mistakes but helped me learn.
Why am I saying all this BS? Because sourcing has been THE roadblocker for me.
I live in South FL, everything is $$$ inflated. So I toured thrifts and accumulated good weight of silver plated: big mistake. Also the best mistake, helped me to graduate in Silver, to a point where I can experiment out of the box.
Also, I went insane into eWaste. It is ridiculous but it is a good source for me, specifically for gold. Literally trash can diving. A neighbour put 3 large brand new, sealed Xerox machines to be taken by waste management. It rained for days here, my son saw and called me - he's seen me scrapping all sorts of circuit boards. From the Xerox machine there was no more than a medicine sized tube of pins, fingers (not refining ICs for now).
Every end of day soon after dinner while my wife and kids were messing around the TV, i just laid down a cardboard and dedicated a couple of hrs per night to clip every single gold plated pins. Most boards you get 10 pins with less than a mm of plated gold.

Summary, there are not many options, you have to get "your hands dirty", meaning you have to look.try your drawers, boxes in the garage, yard sales, flea markets, on line auctions, thrifts, on line stores like Bonanza and similars.
You will find a lot, it is overwhelming and the prices are baaaaaaaad. So you have to look, you have to follow individual auctions, you have to dedicate time to succeed on this hobby.
I learned the worst way that in depth study, disciplined practice, patience, journals and dedication are mandatory to succeed.
And it depends on where you live: you have the virtual world and the real world near you.
I am sure I will create relationships and have repeat sellers with time and dedication. But I need to invest time with dedication. It is possible to buy one piece per day. It is what I committed to do Sunday to Sunday.

It will be a great journey in the best years of our lives my friend.

Cheers
 
I started this hobby about an year ago. My plan was to refine karat gold. Very soon i found out that it is nearly impossible to find it with reasonable price. I end up changing my plan and concentrated on silver. It is easier to find at lower price and if make newbie mistakes, not so much money is lost. During the last year, i started to think gold as a sidecatch. Sometimes find karat gold, sometimes plating from silver items.

Even with silver, it still take time to find material. When im searching for material, i also buy jeweleries for sale. Selling jeweleries make precious metal hobby profitable for me. Vintage silver jeweleries are selling good. Now refining is just for savings, barely breaking even at best case.
 
I found myself in a specific situation when I started with refining. I had small pile of old electronics in house, mainly from my granddad´s repair shop. Very good yielding stuff, but only a small ammount. I scraped that in maybe two weeks.
And then faced the same issue - where to find some scrap ? Sniping all kinds of things, e-scrap, karat, silver, electronics, whole devices, PCs etc. quite intensively. And just found that with regular ways, it is nearly impossible. Mainly with karat and silver here. There is no way to find anything what sell below spot. No chance - pawnshops, jewellers, auctions on internet - not a single time under spot. And also, mentality here is to scam anybody :D without a doubt, we are a nation of scammers naturally... People think they will get milions for their old crappy broken bracelets and rings, seriously. Completely refuse my offered 90 to even 95% of the spot, and next week they will march to the first jeweller´s where they will get 70% - because they do not trust the young honest guy, only the well known big scammer :D Buying on internet here is a nightmare also. After two times when I get scammed, I stopped buying stuff from internet overall. And focused solely on e-scrap. Not worth the nerve and risks involved. Fortunately, it was not a huge ammount of money lost. I lost all hope for this nation completely after experiencing these things.

E-scrap is easier here, but only when people completely do not know the value. Otherwise the scammer-spirit is awaken :D and they start to expect the material and old devices are worth millions.
Most of the people here focuses on the copper - easy to find, scrap and sell. So many people know the value of copper scrap like motors, transformers, old welding machines, cables etc... Sometimes you get lucky to find some old PCs, mobile phones, CRT TVs from 70s, many times circuit breakers, fuses etc. Overall after 2 day hunt not even a small pile of goodies to start some refining.
Much better oportunities here are when electronic scrap and hazardous materials are collected at villages. Smaller villages do not have yards where you can officially dispose old electronic devices or hazardous stuff like old paints, paint thinners, motor oil etc... So they organize 2 times a year an event, when big container is placed somewhere in the village and people can toss the electro scrap here. Sometimes just few small things contained, but often you can cherrypick some goodies like big circuit breakers, fuses, PC boards, mobile phones etc :)
At regular scrapyards at towns here, you aren´t allowed to take the stuff even for money. Some folks at "private-owned" scrapyards are willing to sell the stuff, but at prices that you cannot make single buck out of it :/ as I said, nation of scammers :D

Later on, I found incredible opportunity to work for one bigger guy who refine scrap. With chemical knowledge, I was well suited for doing this kind of work. But not with my own material still... Maybe some time in the future. We will see
 
Jmk88 said:
With all due respect... have some respect.

It isn’t something you just hop on eBay and start doing you need to forge business relationships with people that work in the industry and like Dave says, that’s through hard work like anything.

Why would you assume karat material or the karat industry is any different? Along with diamonds and fiat paper it’s currency across the entire world. When has gold ever been easy to obtain? Lol. It wouldn’t be so desired if it was easy to obtain. I thought that was obvious?

The best ppl to contact are jewellers that work with high quantities as there are lots of jewellers that will agree to let you refine their rubbish for either a few or some gold. However, why would they opt for a hobbyist when they can go to a pro?

And also, you expect to break even? That had me in fits.... anyone that has learnt to do this properly will tell you... you will run at a loss for your initial year at least. You will not break even believe me, not off of one batch of material.

My advice is if you are doing this purely for money/to pass time, not because you sat and dreamed of doing it for at least a year, you won’t succeeed. Hence why you’re coming here for ideas on how to get scrap.... again, with all due respect, there is a philosophy “where there’s a will there’s a way”. Note how no one that is respected here ever discusses where they get their material.

Yes it’s the devil’s philosophy but in this case it’s very true. I had to beg jewellers in London’s diamond district to give me a chance; I took copious knock backs and people being hostile.

You are better off buying some gold at a loss, doing it, and demonstrating you can do it. This will take a minimum of 12 months with you practising day in day out and then reading the rest of the time.

Sorry but this post really annoyed me... it’s the equivalent of asking someone to do for you.
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You sound like a really nice guy with all due respect.
 
Puff501 said:
I appreciate all the info, and also the non info. I didn't realize that I would be pushing some peoples' buttons with this topic. It's not like I'm asking hey Joe, where do you get your stuff I want to go there too. It was a general question for someone new to this like me.
I've been looking for a while now and I now know a guy who knows a guy, and I have another place as well.....

I've done my first refining and still I'm learning. I will be learning for a long time. However I was careful, I had no disasters, had a net loss of 4 grams from 66.75 gram theo yield. I'm pretty happy with it. Got all my silver back.
I'll be working on another batch soon. Have a theo yield of 44.5 grams sitting on my desk right now.
So thanks again and I am not in competition with any of you so don't worry OK?
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It’s really a shame how pompous a lot of these folks are on here. I’m not exactly sure what the size of stick that firmly wedged in there is. When I signed up it was for a mess my kids created and really got us into a bind. Spent 3 hours writing the story and asked for help. Got chewed out and had to rewrite and change my username even because someone got hurt feels. I personally think that a lot of these fine individuals would absolutely be eating both servings of knuckle sandwiches and my world famous combat boot salad I would be more than willing to feed them for their wonderful kindness and treatment of others. Even the motto to the site gives me a good laugh! Ha ha, what jerks!
 
UpsetFatherof4 said:
It’s really a shame how pompous a lot of these folks are on here. I’m not exactly sure what the size of stick that firmly wedged in there is. When I signed up it was for a mess my kids created and really got us into a bind. Spent 3 hours writing the story and asked for help. Got chewed out and had to rewrite and change my username even because someone got hurt feels. I personally think that a lot of these fine individuals would absolutely be eating both servings of knuckle sandwiches and my world famous combat boot salad I would be more than willing to feed them for their wonderful kindness and treatment of others. Even the motto to the site gives me a good laugh! Ha ha, what jerks!
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With all due respect of course.
 
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Ralph, he probably won't read your response. I just banned him.

For the record, UpsetFatherof4 was asked to change his username because it was inappropriate. He had to rewrite his post because the original version was full of profanity. Both are violations of board policy. He was given a chance to comply with our rules, but it appears that was too much to ask of him.

His post here today suggesting he would like to commit violence against our members is more than I will allow.

Dave
 
Personally I think karat scrap (closely followed by stirling) are the hardest to find at an economical price. Mainly because they nearly always have some kind hallmark which is basically the items value printed in the side.. alright you need some basic knowledge to calculate the actual value but it's there for all to see..

Stuff like ewaste, rolled gold and catalytic converters are much easier to find at an acceptable price as even if people know theres some value there it requires real knowledge and experience to actually quantify what values they contain. (Even a good estimate!)

You will probably find most ebay auctions still hit there value but the chances of you picking somthing more obscure up 'in the wild' for a bargin price is much higher.

My advice would be concentrate on accumulating that kind of knowledge and forget karat.
 
A wise man once told me there was a fortune to be made in poor mans Karat Gold.
That poor mans Karat Gold was Gold Filled! I built a whole company off that wise man's words!
Search and you shall find.
 
Finding materials to recover and refine has always been one of the hardest parts of this as a hobby or even a business many members are lucky to refine an ounce of gold a year.
There is material out there but finding the sources can be utterly frustrating to be polite but as I have said before talk to everyone you know or meet about your new hobby and what you are looking for, you really never know where that connection will be made .
 
Sourcing! Sourcing is one of the hardest things for both hobbyist and professional alike. As even a small dealer/ hustler/ hobbyist refiner has to have a flow of source materials to generate some value in time and effort, sometimes knowledge holds the value. Profit for work and effort involved. The little guy in my opinion takes all the risk. They risk the money. They invest a lot of time and effort. They can get robbed, ganked, or other risk. That one reason they have to have more profit margin to have a successful business model. On the refiners side you have almost zero liability, but lower profit margins. You make up that profit margin in volume. Where on one side the client takes all those risk, the refiner eliminates them. The refiner will never lose money! Well... Unless you make a mistake, and it happens. I had a lot of 300 lbs i was trying to push out the door for a client. Didn't take the time to and patience required. It got rejected. I spent 30 minutes on the phone apologizing. It was shipped back to me. I paid shipping both ways (lose). I had to invest time and effort as well as chemical cost again (lose). Lesson learned. (Gain). My profits come from a know quantity of source materials. The clients source is ever changing. Now it does affect the refiner in volume, but the profit margin is always the same. Just volume matters. In the market the refiner sets at the top of the food pyramid. Those in the chain below him are like worker ants. They gather up the food and bring it home to the moma. But the refiners equivalent to that is he has to gather up the worker ants and make sure there's enough food to feed the need. And he needs a lot of them according to his consumption. It's not a cake walk on either side. Who do you want to be? The ant or the queen? Knowledge, wisdom, and experience is the key to that one. You can find that all right here! The rest is up to you!
 
I see a lot of websites dedicated to buying scrap and unwanted gold. Is this a good option for you? Social media? Just curious myself.
 
The only real way to find karat scrap regularly and in quantity is to be pro active and get your name out to those who have material to sell, this comes with one main problem, you are now a visible and known buyer of precious metals and as such can become a target for robberies or attacks unless you have a secure place to operate from which will include safes alarms cameras and insurance and all those cost money , lots of money…
Margins on karat scrap are much smaller if you want quantity compared to those you can find from other sources unless you are the only buyer with no competition in your area which these days is rare.
Im not saying you can’t find karat scrap but I’d find it hard to rob a member of the public so would want to offer 90% as a minimum which would leave a healthy margin on gold scrap which is by far the easiest to refine or you could flip it for a 6-8% return with the big buyers.
Another point to remember is that buying karat scrap is cash intensive and you now need deep pockets to buy in quantity so in honesty e scrap is a good cheap alternative for many especially if the material is sourced for free or cheaply , lots more work but much bigger return.
 
An old prospector once said to me;

“Gold brings out the best in some people but in others it brings out the worst”

The truest words I have ever heard..

Cheers all
Tony
 

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