# Pictures from the working process



## plamenppp (Aug 27, 2010)

I've been busy for the last two months. I worked hard to buy and sell some precious stuff. Here are some pictures:

http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044 - some silver buttons from contactors (old Bulgarian or Soviet devices used to turn on and off big machines)
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317701 - a bag full of copper and brass plates with some silver buttons (I call them silver pills)
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317701 - the only way to remove them is heating and tweezers
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317703 - as you can see it is not very difficult if make a raw of them
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317704 - these plates are interesting because they are double - they have two 90% silver buttons on them. Small but two 
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317704 - some more
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317706 - not mine but worth to be seen  Gold plated watches after nitric bath
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317707 - I am almost finishing for that day
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317708 - this is how 2 kg of silver look like
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20317709 - 0.75 kg of Bulgarian capacitors containing Ag and Pd


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## Claudie (Aug 27, 2010)

Looks like you have been busy. Great pictures, thanks for letting us see them.


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## goldenchild (Aug 27, 2010)

You will be nice and busy. Have fun.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 27, 2010)

I wish I had a nickel for every one of those contact points I've sweated off. Some were as large as 2" in diameter. In the US, at least, the non-tungsten bearing points were coin silver - 90%. When you sweat them off, they pick up most of the solder and some copper from the buss. The average Ag yields from 1000s of pounds of points came out around 81%-82%. There was some cadmium in every lot I ran. Be careful and don't melt them. I always dissolved them in nitric, cemented them with buss bar, and then ran them through the silver cell.


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## Harold_V (Aug 27, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> I always dissolved them in nitric, cemented them with buss bar, and then ran them through the silver cell.


Yep--I used the exact procedure, although not quite as much volume. They are an excellent source of not only silver, but copper for cementing the silver after dissolution. They were the best source I had for copper. 

Harold


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## plamenppp (Aug 28, 2010)

I know about the cadmium  I will not refine them. A professional refiner will do the job if necessary. It costs 25$ per kg. I will sell them the way they are. I came across some bigger points - 11 grams each. They were on huge copper plates. The plate was about 80 grams and had two points 11 grams each. The tungsten ones are terrible and contain 10 to 20% silver and ceramics. They pay 40$ per 1 kg of them.
I did the stripping sell several times but I think the solder and silver plating do not worth the efforts.
I will post some pictures today.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 28, 2010)

Your refiner charges you $25/kg or $.78/oz to run them. That's not a bad price but you didn't say what his yields were.

If I recall, most of the tungsten/silver points I saw ran about 25%-40% silver. If that's the case, a kg is intrinsically worth $150-$250. I only processed a few lots of them because they were such a PITA. Harold has run a lot more of these than I have. He had them down pat and has outlined his process for these several times on the forum.


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## plamenppp (Aug 28, 2010)

For now I only buy silver points. The silver ones are approximately 80% (for the big ones) and 90% for the very small ones. I do not buy tungsten/ceramic ones. The ceramic are 10 to 20% silver and the tungsten are about the same. Since I started I've sold 4-5 kg of silver with 50% profit and I only have 250 grams of ceramic or tungsten points because in the beginning I couldn't recognize them. 

The plates are copper or brass or iron. I buy everything for about 14$/ per kg. 1 kg copper is 6$, 1 kg brass is 4$ and 1 kg iron is 0.20$.
Sometimes the yield is 60% of the weight. This is only for the small ones. They are two points on a copper plate. The points are 90% silver. They can be processed only by hand and this is too much labor but it worths the efforts.
Sometimes the yield is 30% of the weight. This is for the rest of the double ones. They are bigger in size and are 80-85-90% silver. I process them with heat and tweezers. I can handle with 1 kg of them for 30 minutes.
Sometimes the yield is 6-8% of the weight. This is for the single ones. If the plates are iron ... 6-7% silver and TIME AND LABOR. I can handle with 1 kg for 4 hours. After that I am not able to feel my hands anymore. Not to mention the corns and blister. I use vice and a pair of pliers. Each point is between 0.09 and 0.18 grams but the plates are all the same.
Sometimes I buy silver jewels and poins. For the jewels I pay about 0.36$ per gram and for the point (buttons, pills) about 0.25$ per gram.
Sometimes I receive free contactors from my friends. The profit is a lot 

I'll post some pictures if I have time.


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## machiavelli976 (Aug 28, 2010)

This is the reason for overheating the silver contact points should be avoided. The button was already solder free , but the brown stain covering the melted silver is nothing else than cadmium oxide. Weird thing , at 1200-1300'C of the blowtorch flame there's still a round matrix of the button not melted , which i suppose to be Ni or Mo or W. Never run them , just harvesting for processing a bigger batch.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 28, 2010)

When I was real green, I didn't know about the cadmium and melted about 10# of points in a crucible furnace (for the first and very last time). Suddenly, there were large red-brown cadmium cobwebs floating around everywhere in the air. I held my breath, managed to dodge them, quickly got a mask, and poured the melt. The crucible, mold, silver, and tongs were totally covered with cobwebs.

Later on, I found a 200X photo in a book, of zinc cobwebs. They looked like thorn bushes. I saw a bunch of them once when a guy was welding 11 gauge galvanized corrugated sheet. When you breathe them in, they stick to the lungs and create all sorts of physical problems. The cadmium does the same thing, except the cadmium is also extremely toxic.


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## machiavelli976 (Aug 28, 2010)

Ten pounds of melted silver contact points can release between 1 and 1.5 pounds of elemental cadmium as cadmium oxide of course. Yuck !


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## plamenppp (Sep 2, 2010)

Some high-frequency red army soldiers.

http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20415200 - front
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20415202 - back


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## machiavelli976 (Sep 2, 2010)

Wow ! If those are KT920-;-922;-925;-934;-962;-957, and so on, shouldn't be a pitty to destroy them? Does the extracted gold worth to run them?


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## plamenppp (Sep 2, 2010)

machiavelli976 said:


> Wow ! If those are KT920-;-922;-925;-934;-962;-957, and so on, shouldn't be a pitty to destroy them? Does the extracted gold worth to run them?




They are not working anymore. They've been replaced by new KT transistors. A new one, letter A costs about 2.5 USD, letter Б - 4-5 USD and letter В - 10-15 USD.


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## machiavelli976 (Sep 6, 2010)

Well, have fun than ! Still i'm curious about the yield.


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## plamenppp (Sep 7, 2010)

machiavelli976 said:


> Well, have fun than ! Still i'm curious about the yield.




According to a friend of mine (who I trust) the yield should be 30 mg per piece. He said that if they've been made after 1986 the yield should be less - 25 mg per piece. 
Because they've been used the yield should be even less than that. I will not be able to write down the yield, because I will put all I have in AR - transistors, CPUs, connectors and so on.

http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20499058 - a nice Bulgarian PCB with Au, Ag, Pt and Pd.
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20499178 - some USSR chips - К565РУ1 and K565РУ3


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## plamenppp (Sep 7, 2010)

I've seen a 500 kg of CPUs but the owner had a scrap yard and has been collecting them for the last 15 years. 

Look at this guy here: 

http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20499870


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## machiavelli976 (Sep 8, 2010)

Yumm ! Should be a lot of work to run 500kg of CPU's.  But old russian watch cases ,8 karat jewels and lately eye glass frames ,are still my favourite. Thanks Plamen.


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## plamenppp (Sep 18, 2010)

I decided to extract some gold and started a week ago. I put 80 gold plated USSR transistors, 70 gold plated USSR chips, some fingers, 21 Bulgarian gold plated chips, 10-15 ceramic CPUs, and some connectors. Then I decided to put in all the metal transistors from my PCBs. Then I put all gold plated items I had.

http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20415200 - the army of USSR transistors
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20499058 - Bulgarian gold plated chips and a nice connector
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20499178 - USSR chips
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20652008 - bucket full of stuff
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20652015 - the same bucket with even more stuff
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20652034 - the bucket poured with AR
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20652039 - melting the Au
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20652042 - 11.9 according to my scale (according to a professional scale - 12.03)
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20652058 - cleaned gold posing for a photo session
http://tgvtgv.snimka.bg/other/silver.529044.20652062 - after the goldsmith decided to check how soft it is ... It was really soft according to him.

We made a deal: I gave him the gold and he gave me 1 kg scrap silver jewels 925


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## machiavelli976 (Sep 19, 2010)

So , you trade 12 grams of pure (worked) gold , for 925 estimated grams of undone pure silver. Hmm ... don't know what to say. But the joy of recovery is priceless  .


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## plamenppp (Sep 19, 2010)

machiavelli976 said:


> So , you trade 12 grams of pure (worked) gold , for 925 estimated grams of undone pure silver. Hmm ... don't know what to say. But the joy of recovery is priceless  .




The 12 grams of gold (if it is 24k, which it is not) cost 720 BGN and 1 kg of 925 silver costs 925 BGN. The difference is some 205 BGN or 136 USD. I can not sell the gold for it's real price and I can not sell the silver for it's real price, too. Anyway, the difference is good. If they give me 85% of the price (they have to earn some money too) the difference will fall down to 115 USD - not bad at all. 115 USD more just because of a switch


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## patnor1011 (Sep 19, 2010)

Considering that you bought that silver from jeweler and it is hallmarked you just did good and you certainly profited from transaction.


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## machiavelli976 (Sep 20, 2010)

You are both right, but my concern is that there always have been much easy to sell gold at a reasonable price than you can do with silver. In my place of living nobody is buying silver as far as i know.


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## plamenppp (Sep 20, 2010)

I found a man who is buying everything long time ago. Transistors, capacitors, CPUs, copper, iron, etc. Is it is gold he requires at least 31.1 grams with chemical analysis or if it is jewels - seal "585" on it. If it is silver and it is from contactors (my case) we both know it is 80% silver or 90% silver (if it is 90% silver the contact points are small and they have much more different shape from the 80% ones). If it is jewels with stamp "925" he doesn't check each one of them and the price is higher.

Of course, I check everything before I go to him. His men check everything when I go to him. For now only a few grams of silver were with 50% purity and I took them back (I hate when I come across ceramic ones or wolfram ones). I have about 300 grams of ceramic and wolfram silver - they are difficult for refining


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## patnor1011 (Sep 20, 2010)

The problem is to buy gold now. I am living in city where there was problem to sell gold and now we have about 10 cash4gold type shops advertising best prices (30-50%). Few jewelers will pay about 90% but not in cash they will give you credit note you can use when buying from them - a joke it is. Silver is a gold of poor people. You can hold much bigger amounts of metal for fairly less money tied in. Also check on ebay silver is selling as much as 20-50% over spot in form of rounds, bars. In case of another bigger economic crisis (which is certainly coming) is much better to use smal silver bar when buying bread than 1oz gold coin. 

3kg.


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## HAuCl4 (Sep 20, 2010)

Nice product patnor.

8)


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## goldenchild (Sep 20, 2010)

$1900+ for that 6.6 pounds of silver. Very nice rounds 8)


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## plamenppp (Sep 21, 2010)

patnor1011 said:


> The problem is to buy gold now. I am living in city where there was problem to sell gold and now we have about 10 cash4gold type shops advertising best prices (30-50%). Few jewelers will pay about 90% but not in cash they will give you credit note you can use when buying from them - a joke it is. Silver is a gold of poor people. You can hold much bigger amounts of metal for fairly less money tied in. Also check on ebay silver is selling as much as 20-50% over spot in form of rounds, bars. In case of another bigger economic crisis (which is certainly coming) is much better to use smal silver bar when buying bread than 1oz gold coin.
> 
> 3kg.



I agree. I completely agree.


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## Claudie (Jun 8, 2013)

patnor1011 said:


> The problem is to buy gold now. I am living in city where there was problem to sell gold and now we have about 10 cash4gold type shops advertising best prices (30-50%). Few jewelers will pay about 90% but not in cash they will give you credit note you can use when buying from them - a joke it is. Silver is a gold of poor people. You can hold much bigger amounts of metal for fairly less money tied in. Also check on ebay silver is selling as much as 20-50% over spot in form of rounds, bars. In case of another bigger economic crisis (which is certainly coming) is much better to use smal silver bar when buying bread than 1oz gold coin.
> 
> 3kg.


 Where can I get some Silver rounds like these?


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## patnor1011 (Jun 8, 2013)

That can be difficult from you as I got them from refining company in Slovakia. I do not know for sure but there may some charges apply on trade between USA and EU.


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## Claudie (Jun 8, 2013)

Well they are very nice rounds.


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