# awful newb Q.



## Anonymous (Aug 14, 2008)

bear with me, and im sorry to pollute the forum . . . 
i'm looking into purchasing one of those small (70-100 liquid oz) electric furnaces to melt some silver i have here at the shop.

my questions (i have poked around the forum quite a bit looking for answers and havent seen it yet)

1 : can sterling be brought to 99% pure through melting alone?
2 : if so is there a good place to get a solid tutorial that will keep my from inadvertently killing myself. im quite adventurous but also like to have some knowledge before i dive headfirst in.
3 : if there is no way to bring silver to pure through heat, is there a good instructional for another way to do it that wont lead to me being A) horribly disfigured, or B) dead.

i really appreciate any help, and if i can learn i'll be glad to become an active member of this board and field the idiot questions in the future.

i can be reached at darrell%whitelaw%@%me%.%com
(just remove the % signs)

Thanks!


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## Noxx (Aug 15, 2008)

Darrell,
you can't purify silver by only melting it alone... Sterling silver is an alloy.
Two choices are up to you:
-Electrolytic cell
-''Wet'' chemicals refining

Both are well discussed here on the forum.

By the way, may I ask why you want 99% pure silver ?


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## Anonymous (Aug 15, 2008)

we have about ten years of purchasing sitting in the shop, more sterling than i can even begin to know what to do with, so we want to bring it down to a more manageable level of mass. (like bricks / ingots)

anyway, i truly appreciate the response. i'll look into the other methods.


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## NuggetHuntingFool (Aug 15, 2008)

If I were you I'd make certain that those items of sterling are NOT antiques because some items made from sterling can literally be worth thousands of times their weight in silver! 

Just a thought. Good luck.


Sorry mods. One Edit!


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 15, 2008)

How much weight do you have? Maybe a silver cell would be the best thing for you. All depends on the weight. 10 years of accumulation could be 10# or 10,000#.


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## Oz (Aug 16, 2008)

If you want to reduce volume then plain melting and casting into bars will do it. If you truly are trying to reduce mass then you would be wasting your time as there is only .075 parts out of 1.00 that are not silver in sterling even if you managed a miracle of absolute purity. If you want to purify it for sale it may make sense but it seemed in you post you wanted to store it. Given today’s spot price holding it would be a good idea.


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## Anonymous (Sep 2, 2008)

sorry it took so long to get back,
thanks to everyone for the responses. as far as antiquities and valuable items we're very certain that none of it is of any value, most of this is dented, scrapped, old sterling, as well as huge volumes of chintzy sterling jewelry.

we are taking the reduce volume route and melting down the sterling into sterling bars so they can be kept on the side in a more manageable fashion, as purifying it is alot of work to just be stashed away.

much appreciation for everyones kind responses.


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## bmgold (Nov 19, 2008)

Sterling can be sold as is without an assay but when melted it has to be assayed to determine the value to be sold. 

Might not be an issue depending on quantity but it is something to be considered. $35 or so assay fee plus the couple percent less than spot price could eat up the value of several ounces when talking less than $10/troy ounce silver. 

Just a thought.


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