# Why Gold Plated Jewelry Over Gold Plated Pins?



## Anonymous (Nov 24, 2012)

Hello members,

I've been reading here quite a few members saying that the gold plated jewelry is the easiest and fastest, and best return on your refining than gold plated pins. Why is it so?

Why is the gold plated jewelry better than gold plated pins when they both are gold plated and probably contain the same base metals? Is it because gold plated jewelry have much more gold plating on them than the pins?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm thinking about getting into the gold plated jewelry refining, being as though I've fond some great deals on pounds worth of it for a very low price.


Kevin


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## Geo (Nov 24, 2012)

its not. obviously someone is thinking of the poorly plated pins from a mother board. header pins are much better. consider this. if you had a rod 1mm thick and X mm long that weighed a pound that had 30 micro-inches plated gold. you also had a cube of copper that was XxX2 that weighed a pound that had a 30 micro-inch gold plating. which piece of material has more gold on it?

the smaller the gold plated material, the greater the plated surface. jewelry is large and heavy when compared to gold plated pins. theres really no comparison as far as what has more gold.


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 24, 2012)

testerman said:


> Hello members,
> 
> I've been reading here quite a few members saying that the gold plated jewelry is the easiest and fastest, and best return on your refining than gold plated pins. Why is it so?
> 
> ...


I don't know where you got that. In general, pins are worth more, per pound, than gold plated jewelry. Often, far more. On average, I would guess that pins run at least 5 times more per pound. There are exceptions to this, of course. For example, there are pins that are only partially gold plated and occasionally you will find high quality gold plated jewelry. As far as one being easier or faster when doing the actual chemical processing, I would say both are usually about the same. Here again, there are exceptions. If you consider that you must first provide labor to separate the pins, jewelry is faster because you usually don't have to do anything to it that requires much labor.

You must be very careful when buying plated jewelry. Much of it is worth little. What do you consider a great deal on a pound of gold plated costume jewelry? Although the value of pins can vary considerably, they are usually more consistent than jewelry.


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## glondor (Nov 24, 2012)

How ever if you mean "gold filled " jewelry then you have a different scenario all together. Gold filled will be on average at par or more valuable than pins. Plated....not.


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## Geo (Nov 24, 2012)

i just had an upsetting encounter with a woman that wanted me to process around 5 pounds of gold plated costume jewelry. because i was buying computers from her at about 10-15 a month i accepted it. i explained the process i would use and she ask for the deplated metal back. sure, no problem. i took it home and looked through it with a microscope and there was very little gold to be had from it. certainly not worth the chemicals and time. there was one gold filled bracelet that weighed 20g 1/20 14KGF. i decided to process the bracelet and return the rest and called her to explain there wasnt enough on the jewelry to warrant the expense. because i wasnt charging her i figured i had all the time i needed so i wasnt in much of a hurry. i processed the one bracelet which yielded .5g refined gold. she sent me a text message that was very unfriendly saying i had her stuff for three weeks and she wanted all of it back. i told her that i would be there the next day. when i arrived and gave her all the material she started picking through it and asking me "you sure its all here?" and "you mean theres no gold on my stuff?". i gave her the vial with the gold powder (after the text i got, i wasnt about to spend another penny melting it for her) and explained that there was one bracelet worth refining and there it was. no sooner did i get on the road and she called. she ask me where the metal from the bracelet was. i told her she was holding it in her hand. she said "you said you could strip the gold and bring the metal back" it took 8oz of dilute nitric acid to digest it and at the price i pay, well. i told her i had to dissolve the bracelet completely and if it would make her happy, i would bring her an ounce of brass to make up the weight. she then accused me of keeping her bracelet. this is where i hung up the phone. 

moral of the story is, you cant please everyone.

gold plated jewelry will be the last thing i will work on, bottom line. it would have to be a "have to" case.


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## element47.5 (Nov 24, 2012)

Geo, I think you fell into a trap partially of your own making...with all due respect. In 97.3% of cases, people think their stuff is vastly more valuable than it really is, and of course, as you have discovered, in their eyes, your time, labor, skill, and chemicals are worth nothing. Result: predictable. 

This is a similar thing to a lawyer working for free for a friend. When lawyers do this out of friendship, they uncannily end up in intensely awkward situations that often wreck the friendship and expose the attorney to nontrivial liability, because even if done for free, the attorney is subject to all the normal laws and regs and professional standards that he/she would be if they were charging their normal rates. My brother is a retired attorney, he now works part-time as a judge or referee in certain bankruptcy cases. During his career as an atty, he has done plenty of "freebies" for his friends, and I have to tell you, they turn into complex clus_____ks that get everyone angry and leave the people he was trying to do the favor for unsatisfied and incomplete as to legal resolution because inevitably, a deep schism develops. I've seen it too often to not notice. 

I generalize this to an observation I have made, many times: If you give away what it is you do for a living for free, you are making a horrible mistake, one of the worst possible. Because you are internally telling yourself that what you do has no value. I'll not belabor the point, 'nuff said. Just ponder it for a minute.


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