# Inquartation with 30% silver coins



## Lobby (Jan 29, 2012)

Hi folks,

I'm new here. Retired chemical enginner, now in the scrap biz. Thinking (planning) about refining.

I have a question about inquartation: can I use 30%, 40% or 50% silver coins instead of pure silver to inquart, say, 10k gold? Those old Mexican coins have absolutely no value and I wouldn't mind recovering their Ag content.


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## Geo (Jan 29, 2012)

do they have nickel content? you may come out better digesting them in nitric and cementing with copper and use that. people use silver and copper but nickel may be a bad combination. besides it take alot more nitric to dissolve copper than it does silver.


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## Lobby (Jan 29, 2012)

I'm half way through the Hoke book. Got started with Smith's assaying book. But still haven't got all the steps in my head straight.

Please tell me why nickel is bad.

Can someone explain "cementing with copper" from nitric.


All I'm trying to do is reduce time expenditure for extracting $ from "worthless" silver containing coins.

Thanks!


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## philddreamer (Jan 29, 2012)

Hi Lobby!
Cementing with copper is one of simplest methods used for recovering the silver from the nitrate. A piece of clean copper is introduced into the solution & the silver starts to "precipitate". Your silver would be around 99% fine. 
You'll need to become familiar with the Reactivity Series.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=9622&p=94103&hilit=cementing+silver#p93667

Take care!

Phil


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## Lobby (Jan 29, 2012)

Oh, I knew about precipitating silver with other metals. :mrgreen: I guess it's a terminology issue. 

But I remain confused about the nickel comment. I mean, white gold contains nickel, and I hadn't (yet) run into anything in the literature which gave me pause.


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## philddreamer (Jan 29, 2012)

I process jewelry also, & never encountered any problems because of nickle.
Lead & tin, I feel, are more troublesome, but there are proper ways to deal with them. 
When the inquart is processed thru the 50/50 nitric, all these base metals go into solution and the silver and any Pd present will be cemented with copper. The cemented material is then melted into anodes & run thru the silver cell; the silver crystalizes & the Pd sludge is recovered from the bag for further processing.

Phil


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## Geo (Jan 29, 2012)

I've not done a whole lot of cupernickel in nitric but what i did do didn't go as i had planned. of course it couldn't have been the fact that i didn't know what i was doing.  :lol: it seemed to me that it used alot more acid than i was willing to spend. i wound up selling all the low content silver coins i had to a local coin dealer. i had quite a hoard of 1965-1966 quarters and dimes.


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## philddreamer (Jan 29, 2012)

Geo, when you say cupernickle, is that flatware? That doesn't contain silver, maybe that's why you had trouble... 

Phil


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## Geo (Jan 29, 2012)

if im not mistaken (and i could be) cupernickel is used in coinage. ill check and see if i can find a link.


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## jimdoc (Jan 29, 2012)

Geo said:


> i had quite a hoard of 1965-1966 quarters and dimes.



What were they, Canadian? 

Jim


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## Geo (Jan 29, 2012)

Coinage
Five Swiss francs 
In Europe, Switzerland pioneered the nickel billion coinage in 1850, with the addition of silver. In 1879, Switzerland adopted the far cheaper 75:25 copper to nickel ratio then being used by the Belgians, the United States, and Germany.

In part due to silver hoarding in the Civil War, the United States Mint first used cupro-nickel for circulating coinage in three cent pieces starting in 1865 and then for five cent pieces starting in 1866. Prior to these dates, both denominations had been made only in silver in the United States. Cupro-nickel is the cladding on either side of United States Half Dollars (50¢) since 1971, and all quarters (25¢) and dimes (10¢) made after 1964. Currently some circulating coins like the United States Jefferson Nickel (5¢),[6] the Swiss franc, and the South Korean 500 and 100 won are made of solid cupro-nickel (75/25 ratio).[

http://www.karr.net/cupronickel/encyclopedia.htm

this is just one quick search. there was alot to choose from.


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## Geo (Jan 29, 2012)

there were alot of US coins made after 1964 that had silver content. it was low content but it wasnt until a couple years later that all silver was removed from US coinage. look at the edge on the 1965-1966 eisenhower half dollar and the quarters of the same dates.


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## philddreamer (Jan 29, 2012)

Thanks, Geo!


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## Geo (Jan 29, 2012)

no problem.


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## jimdoc (Jan 29, 2012)

Geo said:


> there were alot of US coins made after 1964 that had silver content. it was low content but it wasnt until a couple years later that all silver was removed from US coinage. look at the edge on the 1965-1966 eisenhower half dollar and the quarters of the same dates.



Kennedy half dollars were 40% silver 1965-1970. I have never heard of any US dimes or quarters for circulation after 1964 having any silver.

Jim


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## Geo (Jan 29, 2012)

sorry about mixing up the dead presidents. :lol: but quarters for sure had a certain amount of silver and i'll have to check about the dimes. but the dimes i had sold for more than a dime so it had to contain something of value.


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## philddreamer (Jan 29, 2012)

There were also some Ike dollars 1971-1976, with 40% silver; but I haven't heard of dimes or quarters either.

The copper-nickel version of the Ike dollar weighs 22.68 grams, the silver Ike dollar weighs 24.59 grams.

Per:
http://coinflation.com/

Phil


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## element47 (Jan 29, 2012)

The Ike dollars that contained silver were "presentation" items, not normal circulating coins. They came in flat cardboard deals that held the coin, or, in some cases, velvet clamshell type deals. I suppose it is possible that the coins therein could be cut out of or otherwise removed from their presentation holders but coins from ordinary circulation contain NO silver. They are the same cupro-nickel composition as dimes and quarters 1965-onward, and halves 1970 onward.


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## Lobby (Jan 29, 2012)

philddreamer said:


> I process jewelry also, & never encountered any problems because of nickle.
> Lead & tin, I feel, are more troublesome, but there are proper ways to deal with them.
> When the inquart is processed thru the 50/50 nitric, all these base metals go into solution and the silver and any Pd present will be cemented with copper. The cemented material is then melted into anodes & run thru the silver cell; the silver crystalizes & the Pd sludge is recovered from the bag for further processing.
> 
> Phil



So inquarting with half-ish silver coins should be ok?


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## philddreamer (Jan 29, 2012)

If you also intend to recover the silver in the process, yes; keep in mind you'll end up using more nitric at this stage, because of the other base metals. It takes about 38 ml of nitric acid to dissolve 1 troy oz. of silver. It will take about 4 times that in order to dissolve 1 oz of copper.

Once you've recovered the silver, next time you use the silver to inquart, you'll use less nitric. 

Phil


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## Lobby (Jan 30, 2012)

Various acid terms are tossed around here a lot. Could I ask for some clarification? When ya'll say:

- nitric acid, you mean concentrated nitric acid, about 68% weight?

- sulfuric acid, you mean concentrated sulfuric acid, about 98% weight?

- hydrochloric acid, you again mean concentrated HCl, about 37% weight?


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## philddreamer (Jan 30, 2012)

That's correct Lobby. 
That nitric is then dilute with 50% distilled water for digesting silver & base metals.
Now with the sulphuric, is 98% for the gold de-plating cell; (35% battery acid), for things like boiling off the borax crystal from the gold & silver after a melt. 

Phil


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## Lobby (Jan 30, 2012)

I'm very grateful, Phil, for all the advice. I've been doing a lot of reading, but haven't gotten started yet. I still have my cousin's spare Harley Davidson parts in my garage and I need to clear that crap out first. :mrgreen: 

The scrap biz is closed tomorrow, so I may go look for pyrex and porcelain stuff at the Goodwill stores tomorrow.


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## philddreamer (Jan 30, 2012)

Lobby, be aware that the vapors from these chemicals are hazardous.
You can find some respirators with cartridges that will filter some of the vapors, but for nitric there's no such cartridge.
It is recommended to use a fume hood or do the work outside, keeping in mind also the safety of children, pets & neighbors.

Take care & be safe!

Phil


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## Lobby (Jan 30, 2012)

I know quite well the hazards of working with acids. I worked with all of the above during the 31 year career in the chemical industry.

I handled HCl all the time; from extremely dilute solutions, to concentrated stuff, to anhydrous HCl (yeah, the gas that's dry). We used 98% sulfuric acid to dry "anhydrous" HCl. Talk about a mess

And in my early days, I ran a pilot plant that used nitric acid as a vapor phase reactant. We had to boil it, under pressure, and feed the HNO3 gasses into a reactor - think tantalum. 

Crazy days.


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