# Recovery rate from Sterling



## mikeinkaty (Jan 22, 2013)

I have finished pouring bars from all the Sterling I have purchased so far.

6348 grams of supposed 925 sterling reduced to 5630 grams of presumed 980-990 silver poured into forty five, 4 oz bars. That's about 240 grams under what it should have produced. That's about an 89% recovery rate from sterling to 980-990 silver. Probably 100 grams were lost from one batch of jewelry. With that in mind the recovery rate was about 90%. If I could sell it at $2 over today's spot price I would recover all my expenses.

note - about 40 grams is still in powder waiting for more for the next bar. All my waste vessels are totally exhaused of silver.

I did find a nearby scrap yard with lots of copper at $4.00 / lb. They are 1/4 mile from the place I get nitric acid.

Mike


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## Smack (Jan 23, 2013)

Copper at 4 bucks, ouch.


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## nickvc (Jan 23, 2013)

Mike I normally expect mixed sterling silver scrap to assay at around 91.5% so by my calculations your around 200 grams short on what I'd expect. Have you got any residues from the silver dissolutions you may find some gold as a bonus that helps the loses, it's also possible you may recover PGMs when you put your silver through a cell, also add a little table salt or hydrochloric to your solutions to make sure they are barren.


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## mikeinkaty (Jan 23, 2013)

nickvc said:


> Mike I normally expect mixed sterling silver scrap to assay at around 91.5% so by my calculations your around 200 grams short on what I'd expect. Have you got any residues from the silver dissolutions you may find some gold as a bonus that helps the loses, it's also possible you may recover PGMs when you put your silver through a cell, also add a little table salt or hydrochloric to your solutions to make sure they are barren.


Nick -

I did find about another 100 grams or so last night. Baking it down now. So, I am getting closer to the theoritical limit. This recovery rate is more than I expected.

I don't expect any gold or PGM's as all of my Sterling was cups, plates, and bowls except for one small batch of Jewelry and a few spoons. This is the batch that caused me trouble. THere was one ring that had a tiny amount of gold plate in spots. That was all I saw.

Mike


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## nickvc (Jan 23, 2013)

To be honest then you probably won't find much gold or PGMs but in mixed scrap jewellery lots it's not uncommon to find it all and many modern silver jewellery items are now rhodium, platinum or even palladium plated.


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