# What if Copper had Gold?



## SilverNitrate (May 25, 2008)

Right now Gold is valued at 3600x the price per weight of Copper. Knowing that some refined gold comes from copper mines, what if old copper contained gold? even to the extent of 1/10 gram per pound of copper would you be willing to extract that tiny amount of gold from copper? i.e. old pennies, radios and electronics, plumbing etc.

I am not saying that this is true and nor did I perform any study.


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## goldsilverpro (May 25, 2008)

The electrolytic purification of copper has been known and used for a long long time. Of course, one can dream.


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## OMG (May 26, 2008)

I read in wiki that american nickels have 9cents worth of metals in them. 6cents of nickel, and 3 cents of copper.
And the price of nickel is supposed to keep going up. The worlds nickel supply will run out in 90 years.


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## Oz (May 26, 2008)

Pennies have exceeded their face value as well. They have also placed new legislation in effect to ban the exportation or domestic melting of these 2 denominations of US coins. I think the fine is $25,000.00 if I remember correctly.


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## Anonymous (May 26, 2008)

gold is not 3600 times the price of copper. Primary copper is eletrolytic, not sure there would be so much mixed in, but pretty sure there may be at least a few atoms.


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## SilverNitrate (May 26, 2008)

gold right now is 3600 x copper. 1g Au= $29.75, 1g Cu= $.00826

The electrolysis theoretically would plate out the gold just as it does the copper, so the may be trace amounts of gold even in electrolytically produced copper. The best candidate would be old copper before modern methods were perfected.


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## Harold_V (May 27, 2008)

SilverNitrate said:


> gold right now is 3600 x copper. 1g Au= $29.75, 1g Cu= $.00826


Copper does NOT sell for 23.4¢/lb. In fact, recycling yards are paying upwards of $2/lb currently. Your math, like your concept, is wrong. 



> The electrolysis theoretically would plate out the gold just as it does the copper


*That is not true!*

If you don't agree, please provide cites. 

Anyone that has researched the parting of copper, or has operated a copper cell, as I have, will attest-----gold is liberated from the anode in the way of finely divided particles, which settle to the bottom of the parting cell. Any gold that would be included in electrolytic copper would be included mechanically, not by electrolysis. 



> The best candidate would be old copper before modern methods were perfected.


Perhaps you failed to read the post by GSP?

It is common knowledge that the presence of contaminants in copper increases electrical resistance, and toughens the copper, creating problems in drawing the material. 

The knowledge to refine copper electrolytically dates back long ago. Your assumption that the people from earlier generations were stupid and couldn't separate the values from copper is absurd. Many of the copper operations relied on the extraction of greater values to warrant the production of copper. Electrolytic parting of copper is not a modern phenomenon. 

I'm going to play the devil's advocate for a moment and assume your concept is sound. Perhaps you can share with me the source of all of this "old copper" you speak of? 

My experience indicates that copper has enjoyed a successful recycling market for many years before I was born. Fact is, as a kid, I relied on scrap copper as a source of income. Seems to me that if WW II didn't consume all of the old copper, the open market would have done so since. 

Please try to keep your posts on planet earth. Misinformation that is posted has a way of confusing those that are trying to learn. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (May 27, 2008)

I agree with every point that Harold made. Electrolytic copper refining is done with a sulfate solution. Gold doesn't form a sulfate. Any gold contamination would have to be included mechanically. The way it is set up, this is impossible. I spent a week one time in the Anaconda tankhouse. If I remember right, there were 6 acres of tanks in one room. As a by product, they generated somewhere between 3000 and 10000 ozs of gold per month. My company was there to possibly refine the gold. We talked to employees all day long for a week, about the system. No significant amount of gold ends up with the copper. Maybe, parts per trillion.


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## Anonymous (May 27, 2008)

I stand corrected, the numbers quoted are very accurate.

Sorry, SilverNitrate.


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## SilverNitrate (May 28, 2008)

I believe my math is correct spot for copper say 3.70/lb works out to .83 cents per gram. Scrap yards do pay about half that. A reputable gold smelter would pay $25 gr for gold. so really it works out to a good 6000 to 1 ratio Cu to Au. 

I post this as a what if scenario. The copper cells do get the metal to quite high purity. But I was aiming for sources of copper before it reached that point. Copper melted from the ore or native and blister copper. (maybe nearly impossible today unless you have a mine). 

That copper yard which recovered 10k ounces of Au is equal to the price of 1000 tons of copper! and no telling how much silver.


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## Harold_V (May 29, 2008)

SilverNitrate said:


> I believe my math is correct spot for copper say 3.70/lb works out to .83 cents per gram.


Sigh!  

I see I owe you an apology. I obviously misread your original comments, which, up to now, I didn't realize. I got tripped up on the discussion of grams, as I was thinking in ounces. *I am sorry. *



> I post this as a what if scenario. The copper cells do get the metal to quite high purity. But I was aiming for sources of copper before it reached that point. Copper melted from the ore or native and blister copper. (maybe nearly impossible today unless you have a mine).



I agree----but you have almost no chance of obtaining copper of that nature unless your source is as you suggest. Your own mine, but even then you'd be at the mercy of the ore. It may or may not contain gold, although it likely does.



> That copper yard which recovered 10k ounces of Au is equal to the price of 1000 tons of copper! and no telling how much silver.



It's far greater than that. I believe I've mentioned that I grew up where one of the world's largest open pit copper mines has been in business, this one for well over 100 years. They recover traces of almost all of the precious metals, although not in significant numbers in all cases. Gold and silver are a huge contributor to their (Kennecott Copper Corp.) operation---statistics for which have been published in a book I own. Unfortunately, it is in storage, so I am unable to quote the contents. The one thing I think I recall is that the value of the recovered gold pays for the cost of operation for something like 10 months out of 12. The precious metals they recover are very instrumental in the very existence of the mine. 

My point is that the producers of copper have been recovering traces of precious metals for about as long as they've been processing copper. They were very much in tune with the value, and sought full recovery. The technology, such as it is, is not new, it's actually quite ancient, coming into use shortly after the discovery of electricity. 

As an old acquaintance once told me, "humans have always been smart".

You mentioned the possibility of recovering gold from old pennies. 

I'm of the opinion that gold in copper that has come from any of the federal mints will be so low in gold that it may not show in the finest of assays. If it does, it is likely to be parts per billion, not million. The idea of reprocessing copper for the traces of precious metals they may contain borders on the insane. If it is worth recovering now, it was damned well worth recovering when the copper was processed. They were not handicapped by the lack of knowledge how to recover the values. 

Harold


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## SilverNitrate (Jun 4, 2008)

Ok, I have found this old book 'copper refining' on google its from 1921, 
Worth a for those interested. 
Now the key is to find century old copper from very old unrehabbed houses. 
http://books.google.com/books?id=zr...dq=refining&ei=hitGSI3uLKaojgHHuJGQDQ#PPP5,M1


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## meatheadmerlin (Jan 14, 2014)

Wouldn't it be more likely to find traces of gold in copper recovered from one's own waste solutions?


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## nickvc (Jan 14, 2014)

Modern copper refining began in earnest in 1869 with the production of the first copper cells in Wales but prior to that the chances are the copper around had some values still in them. Nearly all copper mines produce gold and silver and in rarer cases PGMs but usually in trace amounts but I feel most copper still extant from before 1869 would be worth more as objects than for the values possibly contained in them. Man has never left gold or silver in any other metal unless deliberately for decoration or a specific purpose so I wouldn't get my hopes up on finding any large amounts of values unless your moving tonnage of old copper through cells.
As to whether our own copper used in refining would contain more values it depends on its use, personally I use copper in my first stock pot and steel in the second one so in my case yes the copper has small traces of values and with time will be worth the effort to recover them, how you then actually reduce the mass to a worthwhile amount to actually refine is a persosonal choice. I actually drained all my materials and filtered the resultant metals, left the metals sit turning and keeping damp until it formed copper carbonate , ball milled it and allowed to get damp again and then removed the mass of the copper carbonate by using dilute sulphuric acid, i did the acid process several times again allowing the powders to dry and form more copper carbonate until I had a concentrated powder left which could easily be dissolved in AR, precipitated the gold and then cemented the PGMs out on more copper.


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