# Some fingers



## mikeinreco (Jan 24, 2018)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/183035070353?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Thanks for looking


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## silversaddle1 (Jan 24, 2018)

that's about 10 dollars an ounce, so $160.00 a pound. 

I theink you are being way too optimistic there.

However, if you do sell them for that, I will be one happy guy when I list mine!

:G  :G  :G  :G  :G  :G


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## denim (Jan 24, 2018)

I agree with silversaddle, probably over priced, but who knows it is listed on ebay. Never ceases to amaze me what people will pay for this stuff. But I guess if it is in an effort to pursue a pass-time hobby what's the problem with that. Perhaps cheaper than some other hobbies, and they might actually learn something.


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## mikeinreco (Jan 24, 2018)

Yea wasn't quite sure what to ask for them........That's why I put the "best offer" there......Thanks for criticism as I have just been selling most of this stuff in bulk and trying a little something different.......This may be a stepping stone to refining myself or this may be as far as I go with it........I enjoy this forum as well the scrap forum and I enjoy the escrap as well........I probably spend more time worrying about this stuff than I should


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## mikeinreco (Jan 24, 2018)

This was recent auction....kinda where I got the pricing from these completed sales 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-oz-Gold-Fingers-For-Scrap-Gold-Recovery-2-2/332519279295?hash=item4d6bb18abf:g:i94AAOSwR29ZCMwU


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## mikeinreco (Jan 24, 2018)

just tinkering here

https://www.ebay.com/itm/183035537256?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649


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## Topher_osAUrus (Jan 24, 2018)

wow.... at those prices nobody should refine fingers ever... ever...

just put em all up on ebay

....wait, then the buyers come here learning how to process them and learned they got gypped by a member
doh!


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## mikeinreco (Jan 24, 2018)

I would never look to rip anyone off..........I figure that most people here know more about this stuff than I do......The big ewaste buyers pay between $20-$30lb for clean fingers.......On ebay they are going for $10/OZ....Somewhere in the middle is probably the true value


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## g_axelsson (Jan 25, 2018)

As I've said several times, best way to refine without nitric is to sell the scrap on ebay and buy gold for the money.  

Göran


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## silversaddle1 (Jan 25, 2018)

Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If I could sell everyday for ten dollars an ounce, I would. I have no idea of what the buyer intends to do with the product. Is it more than what they are worth in gold content, yes, but maybe that's not the reason the buyer is buying.

I hope you lot sells.


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## silversaddle1 (Jan 25, 2018)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> wow.... at those prices nobody should refine fingers ever... ever...
> 
> just put em all up on ebay
> 
> ...



They only way someone gets "Gypped" is if the seller is dishonest and misleads a buyer. 

If a seller truthfully sells a product and someone is willing to pay the asking price, that's a square deal. No one is forcing the buyer or seller into the deal.


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## anachronism (Jan 25, 2018)

I had a guy visit my premises yesterday having been recommended by a client. He wanted to get into refining gold and said his plan was to buy fingers from eBay and make profit on them.

You can imagine his face when I told him that he would lose money, especially when he had written a business plan. This guy was no idiot, he was genuine, intelligent and forthright. 

I have had the same conversation with 5 UK people referred from this forum over the last year. 

Although I accept that in a very few cases people will buy these things to learn a process, the vast majority of people buy them thinking they will make a profit. Dress it up any way you like but as such I do not accept that selling fingers for more than their worth is a straight deal.

That's not a dig. It's not aimed at anyone in particular it's just an expression of my opinion and ethical position on this so please don't anyone get hot under the collar. 8) 8) 

You guys do what you like but a pig in a frock is still a pig.


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## silversaddle1 (Jan 25, 2018)

While this discussion comes up about every 6 months, I always reply to them.

Just because you think something is only worth X amount, does not make it true. Let me ask a simple question. If you had bought a ton (2000 pounds) of gold fingers off E-Bay back when gold was around $400.00 an ounce, and paid double what they would have been worth then, how stupid would you have looked when gold hit $1900.00 and ounce? I assure you there could have been a bunch of money made on the ton of fingers. And the best part is the only thing you had to do was sit on them long enough to make a handy profit.

There are a million different ways to invest in gold, and most gold investors will say it's a long term investment.

Gold is oversold everywhere, all the time. Can you go into any dealer and buy gold at spot? No.

As far as auctions go, when I buy at auction, I know what I want to pay for something. But then there are times when I know what I want to pay, but end up paying more. And then there are times when I don't care what I pay, I'm going to own it.
This is true with all buyers, in any auction.

Do I feel bad if someone overpays on one of my auctions? Nope. I describe my items truthfully, provide good photos, and Never, Ever give any guesses on yields.

It's up to the buyers to do their own homework and establish their spending limits.

My job as a seller is to make as much profit as I can on materials. If I do this honestly and without false claims, then I'm happy.


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## anachronism (Jan 25, 2018)

On an auction, I'm with you 100% that's down to the buyer. 

It's the fixed price items where the seller knows darned well that the gold isn't there to justify the price that I'm referring to.


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## snoman701 (Jan 25, 2018)

anachronism said:


> I had a guy visit my premises yesterday having been recommended by a client. He wanted to get into refining gold and said his plan was to buy fingers from eBay and make profit on them.
> 
> You can imagine his face when I told him that he would lose money, especially when he had written a business plan. This guy was no idiot, he was genuine, intelligent and forthright.
> 
> ...



You were kind to educate him, and it goes to show your integrity. 

It is really darn hard to make money...as in a reliable business income, on the refining side of e-scrap...from a startup. The material is inconsistent, difficult to refine from strictly a chemistry point of view, and further, it's really hard to compete with massive scale pyrometallurgy. Your value is in your analytics, of the odd, concentrated values, that don't lend themselves to consistent sampling on the large scale. 

It's one thing to be a recycler, or a packager...but the amount of e-scrap that is actually refineable on a small scale is small. Then, if you want reliable data, you have to accumulate enough like material to run a reasonable size load, realistically, many of them. OR, you have to invest in analytics. OR, you have to have a lot of seed money to fail quite a few times before you start to get it right. Either way, you have to be persistent, willing to fail, and plan to work your butt off. Because, even after you know your numbers, you have to maintain a constant stream of material that you can buy at a low enough price to afford to eat. 

What I can say solidly is this, if you personally entered in to e-scrap refining, with that level of integrity and without multiple business failures in your resume that taught you to look at all of the angles, you are one heck of a talented businessman. I think a lot of it is that you seem to be pretty stubborn, but the failure rates are high, the technical difficulty is up there, and the financial difficulty as well. 

In the examples you gave of the 5 people, they are at hopefully the beginning...if they thought it was as simple as watching a youtube video, then raking in the gold using AP or any other home brew procedure, clearly they have another thing coming...but hopefully it arms them with the knowledge to look at problems in a more analytical fashion for their next business plan. 

As for selling fingers for 2x intrinsic, I really don't know...maybe it's gambling, maybe it's ignorance, maybe it's speculation. I want the people around me to be successful and make good decisions, and like you, I couldn't knowingly mislead them or enable them...but at the same time, I've made some of those mistakes, and they have value in and of themselves. I've got a bag of "contacts" that turned out to be incineration scraps. Spending $10 for an ounce of fingers may very well be a bad business decision, but a good overall lesson in reality. Whether they buy it for the education, or the education comes as a side effect to their greed and ignorance of reality, it's still more inexpensive by the ounce than by the pound.


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## snoman701 (Jan 25, 2018)

I guess that I see both sides, sometime in a better light than I want.

There is part of selling something for more than it's value as "dirty"...but at the same time, it's clearly advertised, there is no intent to defraud the buyer, just provide them with a product at an agreed upon price.

For years, I've seen my parents make a living selling antiques and collectibles...you want to talk about stuff with no value, then there it is! 

But, for years, I have been buying the scrap of certain companies and upgrading it. Whether it be selling railroad rail as anvils, or selling dull tools to guys that sharpen them...or just recognizing the unique and obscure items that are discarded, that may have no longer been useful to the prior owner, but still have a lot of use to others. That is sort of the core of "reuse/reduce/recycle". But with that, there was always that question of, "is this fair, as I'm literally taking someones garbage and reselling it". 

I guess my answer, after many man years, is simple...sure. I'm providing a service to someone. I'm providing them something that otherwise may have cost them $1000, for $20...I'm making $17 in profit in the process, and that covers my labor. What they do with the product is none of my business, the transaction ended after they paid me and I gave them the item.

Now, if it is my intent to make a sale...that is by far a great business plan. There are a lot of guys at the flea market that leave there with money in their pocket every week...BUT...there is a reason they call it the flea market. 

If it is my intent to make a long term customer, I better hope that after I gave them the item, that the item gave them the satisfaction that they were expecting. 

For a long time on Ebay, I had the complaint that it had turned in to walmart. That people could buy something, get what I felt was buyers regret, and return it. Then I changed my way of thinking....mostly, I got lazy. I felt it was easier to just give them their money back, than risk a bad feedback and argue with people when all I wanted to do was tell them to jump off a bridge. Strangely, I discovered that I started having a lot of repeat buyers. My buyers learned that if they weren't satisfied, I would absorb it. In having repeat buyers, I found that my sales volume, and prices went up, as customer confidence increased. All of this because I was frankly, fed up with arguing with people that they made a poor decision. 

And in turn, I've slowly learned to limit the number of poor decisions that my customers can make, and I have actually decreased the amount of drama that I have to deal with. The people that are looking for the unreal deal, aren't always the most respectful when they make a mistake. And even if you are bluntly honest with them, they'll still look at the pig in a frock and expect it to be a beautiful woman, not their mother in law.


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## mikeinreco (Jan 27, 2018)

Thanks for so many replies.........Got fair offer on the larger lot will take any "Fair offer on smaller lot........Just looking to move stuff on and pay bills..........No worries here and of course with any internet forum or ebay for that matter I am smart enough to take everything with "a grain of salt"

Thanks again for all the wonderful replies


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## mikeinreco (Jan 27, 2018)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/183035070353?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649


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## im1badpup1 (Jan 28, 2018)

I saw some ram sticks earlier today where the fingers have appeared to been been dipped and gold plating removed 1.5kg.
And the top bidder so far il like to bet is a forum member. So if your on £26.00 for 1.5kg fingers currently, look at the rest of the bag not the 4 flashy ones in front of the bag.
Mindyou the sellers also likely on here.
Pretty sad stunt to pull that kind of thing. Overpricing is one thing. If people want to pay too much thats their business. But ripping off is another.
It might be a trick of the light but it sure looks odd


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