# Silver Refining Question! .925 or .500 --->98/99%



## Ollie1016 (Jun 13, 2014)

Hello All,

I have a question, and I need to have some experienced input.

I have the opportunity to buy a lot of .500 silver coins and .925 scrap jewellery. 
I would pay:
.500 : 16p/gram
.925 : 28p/gram
Based on .999 at 37p/g

My current process of refining silver is the nitric method and then melt into bars. ( I am working on a cell).

Which type of silver is better to purchase for refining? I'm thinking .925?

Thank you all


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## Ian_B (Jun 14, 2014)

What is your plan at the end? keep, sell to refiner, sell to a private individual, use for yourself in whatever work you do?

if your going to sell to a refiner you might be better off just being a middle man to the items without refining yourself. I mean buy it then sell to refiner. if its coins the refiner can tell what they are with a certain amount of certainty and *might* not charge you an assay on the melt afterwards... (if you melt it they will have to run an assay on it) if it is all sterling you will still need an assay done so it might be worth while to just melt it all into a bar and have them drill it and run an assay on the sample. 

If you refine it yourself unless it is for your own enjoyment the costs can start to add up and at the end you will still have to have an assay done on the bar and depending on what kind of assay or who is doing it the costs of the assay on top of the chemicals you use to refine the silver to pure can eat away at your profit margin compared to just a straight up melt of the sterling and assay without refining yourself.

If it were me and I was buying off the general public in a large amount (1kg or more) I would pay about 75% of spot, more if we're dealing with bigger amounts and flip it fast to a refiner without doing any work myself. Less time involved on my end, no chemical costs, no money tied up in solutions etc 

37p x 50% = 18.5p per gram of 0.500 silver actual value -16p you pay means your profit margin is 2.5p at 100% payout of spot on silver (unlikely) without any chemical costs
37px 92.5%= 34.225p per gram of 925 actual value -28p you pay means your profit margin is 6.225p at 100% payout of spot on silver (again unlikely) without any chemical costs 

So just on the numbers alone the sterling your making more money. but still this is without factoring anything else into the equation.


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