# Selling Price after melt



## Rob Mack (Sep 9, 2016)

Hi
I'm having some a fair bit of scrap melted,
Then off to sell it! Its my first time to sell melted scrap.
I have 168 grams of 14 karat gold. I use a site goldcalc for the true value etc.
What is the normal buying price i.e. .90 to the dollar or less (90% of the true value or less).
any info on this will be appreciated, don't want to be ripped off.
2. I also buy scrap at .60 cents to the dollar (60% of real value) is this considered fair or too low or too high?
I'm still leaning this business.
Thanks
Rob


----------



## IdahoMole (Sep 9, 2016)

I have limited experience but I will answer the best that I can. I think that a 90% return on your scrap gold is fair, if you are dealing with an honest buyer but I don't see any advantage to melting karat gold before selling. You are taking an identifiable form of gold and making it unidentifiable which then requires more time and effort to re-identify it, not to mention your time and expense to melt it.
If you can purchase scrap at 60% I say great, get it as cheap as possible. The pawn shops around here usually pay 60%-65% so I pay 70%. If I don't process it myself I can sell locally at 80% so a quick 10% return isn't too bad in my book.


----------



## nickvc (Sep 9, 2016)

Your buying price is governed by what others are paying locally and what the customer will accept plus what your morals are, the selling price should be around 95%+ for a bar but you need to know what you have which is why many US members refine their material as assays are not cheap there and not all buyers are honest, back to morals again.
You may find that if you up your offer price you can buy a lot more scrap and gain more profit that way, if no extra scrap appears reduce your offer back to where you started and deal with each parcel separately so both you and the seller are content, you can always say no if the price is too high for you as can the seller, happy contented customers will refer you on, disgruntled ones will not.
On this side of the pond you can't buy scrap under 80-95% of spot because there is less distance to travel to sell and competition is high, plus our hallmarks are a guarantee of fineness so there is no doubt what you are buying or what it is worth, US hallmarks are a lot less stringent and can be 1/2 karat below the stated fineness here you have to be spot on or over to get it hallmarked.


----------



## 4metals (Sep 9, 2016)

If your feed material is karat gold, that is by far the easiest material to refine yourself. It all depends on the price you pay for chemicals, but 10% is a high refining rate. 

The reason they all will melt and assay is twofold, first there is often mis marked goods sold and the actual karat is lower. A refiner will melt and assay for his own protection. Then there is the XRF factor where an unscrupulous dealer will calibrate his XRF to read low and pile on a few more percent in the actual cost to you. 

Idaho, you are paying a lot at 80% to refine. It would be to your benefit for you to post your quantities of material available to you to buy and the prices you have been quoted for chemicals and we can help you do a "benefit cost analysis" of doing your own refining and selling refined gold. (>99.9% pure) You may be happy with 10%, but after all of the numbers are calculated, barring any unexpected surprises, you could probably do 25%.


----------



## IdahoMole (Sep 9, 2016)

4metals,
Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly. I can buy at 70% and sell at 80% without refining anything, just turn and burn. If I refine it I can sell it for spot.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Sep 9, 2016)

I believe what 4metals is saying, is that by selling your material at 80%. you are "paying a lot" to have someone else refine it and make a very nice premium.

As you say, if you refine it, you can sell it for spot (or close to it, depending on how you sell). That's potentially another 20%. But you have costs to refine it. It depends on the material, your situation, costs of acids, waste disposal, etc. That's the benefit cost analysis he mentioned

Karat is among the least expensive materials to refine. So if you can keep your refining costs to around 5% you could buy at 70%, sell near spot, and with a refining cost of 5%, you could probably make around 25%.

At least that's how I read it. But it depends on your situation.

Dave


----------



## 4metals (Sep 9, 2016)

Idaho,

Dave said exactly what I meant, I did not get the point that you do refine from your post, just that you can resell it at 80%.

It would be interesting and informative to actually do a benefit cost analysis because there are hidden incidental costs that can be overlooked. But from the perspective of a small at home hobby refiner running small (or smallish) karat lots it would be interesting to crunch the numbers with input from others about cost of chemicals from different regions. It would be one of those threads that would open the eyes of those sitting on the sidelines not having made the leap to processing yet. 

I always try to suggest threads that would be of benefit to our members, it is one of the things I try to do as a moderator. And a benefit cost analysis of a small karat hobbyist operation I think would be beneficial to our members. At least my little mind thinks that!


----------



## nickvc (Sep 10, 2016)

I think this is a splendid idea for a thread but think that perhaps we should look towards using poormans AR so maybe some pointers from members who use it regularly, the one thought that has occurred to me is to use copper for inquarting to avoid the problem with silver and in honesty many karat alloys will dissolve directly without inquarting in standard AR , again advice needed if the same is true of poormans.
Using poormans if possible will be very cheap and within reach of most members and with the death of all the gold buying shops perhaps members wI'll be able to source karat scrap more easily again.


----------



## 4metals (Sep 10, 2016)

Any way a member wants to go is fine with me, I'm a numbers cruncher from way back so anyone wanting to post some specifics we can start this. I know AP may be a problem unless the feed is finely divided metal, with karat that may be an issue.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Sep 10, 2016)

I used poor man AR for a good long while, until i just bought some good nitric with another member locally, from dudadiesel. Where I got 2 x 2.5L for $125... Compared to the proce i was paying at the local science center, $75 for 500mL...

I used poor man AR for a year and a half or so, sometimes if my feedstock had too much silver I had to distill my own nitric, as the cold nitric method left me with some issues because of the silver sulfate and silver chloride.

A new thread thats library worthy should always be a welcome thing.


----------



## upcyclist (Sep 12, 2016)

4metals said:


> And a benefit cost analysis of a small karat hobbyist operation I think would be beneficial to our members. At least my little mind thinks that!


I agree. One problem I can see though is that the CBA only works if you're actually using those amounts of reagents. For example, a given lot of inquarted karat scrap may take 5ml of nitric in the AR stage of processing, but a beginning hobbyist is apt to use more than that. Ditto on every other chemical except water  I know I still use too much, but I'm working on it--at least on the nitric end of things. I still use too much HCl, but it's much cheaper. 

It's not an insurmountable problem, in fact it's easily fixed with a disclaimer. Just thought it was worth pointing out.



nickvc said:


> I think this is a splendid idea for a thread but think that perhaps we should look towards using poormans AR so maybe some pointers from members who use it regularly, the one thought that has occurred to me is to use copper for inquarting to avoid the problem with silver...


As others have mentioned, I first use up any outstanding gold-plated material for inquarting, then use silver for the rest. I also have a pre-1965 US quarter (coin silver) in my "inquarting fodder" container hehe. Gold filled is also an option. As always, though, gotta make sure there's no bronze/tin in there.


----------

