# Gold Filled Scrap Content



## auprecious (Mar 1, 2012)

I was wondering if anybody has a bit of experience with gold filled items and could tell me what you generally find the gold content to be per OZt? Gram?


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## jimdoc (Mar 1, 2012)

http://www.goldnscrap.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71:gold-filled-calculator&catid=49:calculators&Itemid=66

It all depends on how much wear an item has as the gold content is on the surface.

Jim


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## auprecious (Mar 1, 2012)

Indeed. Thanks for the advice and the link.


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## jimdoc (Mar 1, 2012)

Thanks for the link goes to Samuel-a, its his website. His whole site is very good.

Jim


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## lazersteve (Mar 1, 2012)

Don't forget the resale value of refined gold is seldom ever 100% of spot price.

Also gold filled material rarely produces exactly what is marked.

The calculator should be considered as guide for the *absolute maximum* yields for the given type of gold filled. The true yields are subject to *many* variables which are not in the calculator such as non-gold filled base metal content (very high percentage in watch bands), trash in the scrap (lenses, wires, paper, fake stones, grime, enamels, etc.), refining losses, and of course wear and tear as Jim mentioned above.

For example: With whole men's and women's GF watch bands you can expect the bulk of the weight to be stainless steel (70-75%) and the remainder of the weight (25-30%) to be GF weight.

Finally there is your time in labor, chemical costs, and waste disposal to consider when doing any calculation to determine a good purchase price.

All in all the GF calculator page is neat to put numbers in to save you breaking out the real calculator, but in the end you'll need to run some control batches and keep good records of trash weight verses GF weight and yield data to know what's the best price for you to pay for each type of gold filled scrap.

It's calculators like this one that feed the ebay buying crazes for gold filled scrap. They do serve a good purpose, but I would not stake my business or my money on the results.

On the up side you can find a lot of Gold Filled scrap that contains a high percentage of silver as an added bonus.

In my opinion gold filled is a great scrap to refine if you can: 1) buy it cheaply, 2) buy a* lot *of all the same type of items, and 3) recycle your wastes. It's best to buy all the same type of gold filled scrap for reproducible yields. When you get into mixed lots of gold filled items, the yields can be all over the map.

Take it slow and keep good notes.

Steve


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## samuel-a (Mar 5, 2012)

lazersteve said:


> It's calculators like this one that feed the ebay buying crazes for gold filled scrap.



I'd hate to think that it does Steve.

Though, a Disclaimer is clearly stated in the bottom of the page, i plan on adding a full article which explains in more details how one should consider the pricing of GF with most of the considerations you have mentioned above.

I regularly use my own calculators (all four of them) and think it can help others who knows how to use them. After all, it's not rocket science... Time can be saved and errors may be avoided.


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## lazersteve (Mar 16, 2012)

Sam,

My point was to let the reader know that these types of calculators (not only yours, but numerous others you can find here and on the web) tend to display theoretical maximums which seldom if ever hold true in the real world.

The second half of my statement you quoted is:



Lazersteve said:


> ... They do serve a good purpose, but I would not stake my business or my money on the results.



As for the first part you quoted:



Lazersteve said:


> It's calculators like this one that feed the ebay buying crazes for gold filled scrap...



I firmly believe that regardless of what disclaimers you place on the calculator, there will be a group of individuals that considers the calculator to display the exact values of gold in a GF item. This misconception will in turn lead to these individuals paying too much for their gold filled scrap.

I find that my lab book with actual yields for the various types of gold filled items is a much better estimate than any calculator when it comes to estimating what I should pay for the GF scrap and hence my profit. I also keep track of starting weight of the items as well as junk weight found in the lot.

As for adding criteria for wear, stainless base, and other junk that affects the true gold content, I feel this is going to be useless as most buyers (and sellers for that matter) will not have the luxury of knowing these details in advance. All too often I have processed GF scrap only to find the inside of the piece contained cardboard, plastic, enamel, and other unseen trash. A typical 10 pound lot of gold filled can easily contain a half pound of hidden junk. 

I think your calculator, like the other claculators out there, should be changed to display the amount of *base metal *present as a guide of how much nitric acid would be required to dissolve the base metals and not used as a guide to purchasing GF scrap based upon the calculated gold content.

Please don't take offense to my statements, I feel this way about all sorts of karat and gold filled calculators, not just yours. This is the primary reason I have not posted one of my own, there are simply too many variables to make a calculator that is accurate enough to be used as a buying guide.

Steve


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## samuel-a (Mar 16, 2012)

Non taken Steve. 

I can see your point.




lazersteve said:


> As for adding criteria for wear, stainless base, and other junk that affects the true gold content, I feel this is going to be useless as most buyers (and sellers for that matter) will not have the luxury of knowing these details in advance. All too often I have processed GF scrap only to find the inside of the piece contained cardboard, plastic, enamel, and other unseen trash. A typical 10 pound lot of gold filled can easily contain a half pound of hidden junk.





lazersteve said:


> I think your calculator, like the other claculators out there, should be changed to display the amount of base metal present as a guide of how much nitric acid would be required to dissolve the base metals and not used as a guide to purchasing GF scrap based upon the calculated gold content.



This is somewhat contradicting Steve.
As you rightfully said, both the buyer and the seller can't tell (in most cases) what kind of base metals are there? how much of it is there? and if there are any crap inclusions, how could the calculator ever predict it and yield an even remotely reliable response in terms of exact acid consumption?

In the current version of calculating the gold, at least we stick to somewhat known GF standards. Even then, we have so much reservations.


See, I'm looking at it a bit differently, here's just one scenario which i believe happens all too often:
Say, a noob sees a "buy it now" deal on eBay, and he is looking at 50$ worth of GF, but the price which it is offered at is 100$ (assuming the seller description was honest). Not having past experience and very limited knowledge in general, a simple calculator such as this can save him some money...
Another example is: Say a well versed man such as "jimdoc" (who brought up the link), could save some time and headache by using his iPhone to surf to my site (or any other) and calculate quickly while he is at a garage sale or something, knowing the calculation is based on pefect conditions and armed with general knowledge, he then could set him self price goals in seconds.

While fresh, almost everybody make mistakes in this business, i know i had my share.
By using this calculator, I think and hope i could prevent someone from being seriously screwed... even if it is 1 in a 1000, i'd be happy.

All in all, this debate can go both ways and easily fill few pages, the bottom line is, there's only a limit for how far we can walk a new guy (or girl) hand in hand.
Eventually, he will have to use his own brain and relay on his own data like we do now.


That's how i see things anyway...


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## its-all-a-lie (Mar 16, 2012)

samuel-a said:


> While fresh, almost everybody make mistakes in this business, i know i had my share.




^^^ So true, i still remember the one and only mistake i made. I buy alot of scrap gold and silver from individuals and have only been doin this for about a year now. When i started doing this my payout was 60% because i was only getting 80% and all the pawnshops were or are paying 40-50%. I bought 2 10k rings from a lady, figured them up on the calculator, paid her, and went home. Less than 2 minutes after i pulled away from where we met i got a sick feeling, i realised i had calculated her rings as 14k. :shock: Luckily my payout was low enough to still make a profit. Im not sure if it was because this whole thing was new to me, or if it was because of lack of sleep, but either way, it happened and there was no turnin back. I have since increased what i pay and hope this doesnt happen again.


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## lazersteve (Mar 17, 2012)

Sam,

The reason for using the calculator to display the base metal content is to determine the *'maximum' *required nitric acid to be added in small doses, not an exact figure to be added all at once. You could very easily add two fields to the chart to display the estimated base metal content and the maximum required nitric to be used. Then the calculator would have the best of both worlds.

I routinely calculate the maximum required amount of nitric acid before I start any inquarting or gold filled batch. I pour this calculated amount of acid into a separate beaker and add my nitric to the reaction vessel from this volume. Doing it this way prevents me from losing track of how much i have added during the course of the reaction, especially if the reaction runs for a long time and gets interupted for whatever reason. 

I agree with you about making calculations on the fly, the calculator does have application in this area for 'down and dirty' numbers for those that don't have the formulas memorized. I guess I've grown so used to calculating the numbers with my phone calculator, that it is quicker for me than going to a web page and entering the numbers in the various fields. 

My refining routine involves recording the weights of the various GF items in my lab book, then determining the maximum nitric required before each job. When the reaction is complete I divide the weight of the resulting bars by the total weight of the gold filled scrap to give me a yield percentage for the lot.

Steve


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## Eaheisler (Apr 9, 2013)

I use the calculator to find my gold value than multiply "X" x .60 this should yield me a profit.


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## nstrazzella (May 25, 2013)

hi, 
i have successfully refined 10k 14k and 18k gold jewelry using the Aqua Regia method , , , ,but every time i refine gold filled jewelry i seem to lose the gold and get other metals in the precipitate at the bottom???
so i throw some nitric acid on the white metal thats left on the bottom ,,,, hoping to have the brownish gold left...
now
i have a 2500ml bottle preciptate how do i get the gold out???


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