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Buying off ebay, refine, and sell back on ebay

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Hello everyone thanks for this forum I decided to register today after much research into refining, I didn’t realise the wealth of knowledge on here, I just expected there to be a few dreg links about selling you a process but how wrong I was!!

I have been thinking about precious metal refining now for about 6 months, and now I have changed my job I have a lot more spare time to get serious about it. Basically I would love some people to offer advice with the calculations I have come up with using my own calculator on ebay lots:

Based on the price of gold being £475.00 gbp per ounce

Lot 1: 7.51oz of 9ct scrap jewellery sold for £1085
Lot 1 contains 2.81oz of pure gold, should sell for £1337 once refined into bars, profit margin £252.

Lot 2: 8.11oz of 9ct scrap jewellery sold for £970
Lot 2 contains 3.04oz of pure gold, should sell for £1445 once refined into bars, profit margin £475.

Lot 3: 4.44oz of 14ct scrap jewellery sold for £971
Lot 3 contains 2.59oz of pure gold should sell for £1231 once refined into bars, profit margin £260.

After taking into consideration the refining cost (not inc the initial outlay for the equipment) selling cost and fees etc I feel there is still a considerable amount of profit in the above calculated margins.

The equipment I intend to buy for this consists of a propane lamp from my local DIY store or ebay, some crucibles, graphite moulds, the obvious handling equipment, then for the actual processing equipment I am thinking about buying this unit and the chemicals they are selling on the site:

http://www.shorinternational.com/simplbrochure.htm

Please feel free to advise me and comment on my calculations and quest for starting my little enterprise, feel free to use any type of criticism and tell me my assumed method is daft and naive because that’s the best way I will learn!

Hope to hear from some of you guys soon.

Mat
 
Skip the Shor products and you will save money on equipment and chemicals. They're over priced and you will be tied to their secret formulas. You can do it yourself guerilla warfare style and still get excellent results.

Your estimated profit margins will be tough to achieve. Expect to "take it on the nose" when selling unmarked gold, unless you have a good arraingment with a buyer. Many of us are in a tough spot, holding pure gold but not being able to get top dollar for it.
 
Hey Mat,

Thanks for posting that message. I just joined and had exactly the same idea/questions.

You asked about ebay and Ishore for me. I hope you don’t mind me adding a couple of my own noob questions on.

LOL What does spot mean? I assume it means the current value of 99.99% gold?

After reading on here it blew away my idea that I would get good money for my refined gold. It seems people are collecting gold just for the fun of it and holding onto it. What do people find they get in term of spot % for their 99.95% refined gold?

Most of the messages seem to be about getting the gold off circuit boards but not scrap gold jewelry. Is there a reason for that? Cheaper to buy?

When people buy scrap gold do they offer a premium for purer gold? Is there a price range that people generally offer for scrap gold? Ie 70% of gold value(spot?).

What about stones attached to jewellery, how do you account for that?

Carl
 
Hi Ice and Karl. (And welcome)
Happy to see 2 guyz who start exactly how i started! :)
Same thinking.. Same words... Same ERRORS!!! :p

So... just few words for you.

1) Forget I-shor machine. U can easyly make yourself the electrolisis machine for really few pounds/dollars/euros and u will not "hooked" to buy the ishor chemistry, so u can be independent and low costs of refining-cycles.

2) To melt, use OXY-PROPANE not only PROPANE! i cant melt with propane only, neighter using compressed air with it.

3) Spot price, is price at the daily market of 999,9 (good delivery) gold.

4) U can count Price of scraps doing this:
(Weight of scrap / 1000) * title ) * spot price
where title is karat in thousands (14kt = 535, 18kt = 750, 22kt = 900m and so on...)
Once u know worthing of object u can try a good deal thinking the loss u can have during refining (dirty in chains, melting loss, no worthing stones in it, chemistry costs, electricity costs, time costs, and so on...).

5) Why someone pay more...
a) Little Ingots usually woth little bit more then spot price, cose building-costs (pakaging, minting and so on...)
b) I think someone use it as one way to "clean" money.
c) Someone buy the object as is, not counting gold worthing, just as object.
d) I think there are lots of crazy people around...

BTW, I can help you (same other guyz done with me here) showing you photo and method i used to make my own-machine and refining...
 
ALPHABiT said:
Hi Ice and Karl. (And welcome)
Happy to see 2 guyz who start exactly how i started! :)
Same thinking.. Same words... Same ERRORS!!! :p


3) Spot price, is price at the daily market of 999,9 (good delivery) gold.
Click to expand...
kewl! thank you :)

ALPHABiT said:
Hi Ice and Karl. (And welcome)
4) U can count Price of scraps doing this:
(Weight of scrap / 1000) * title ) * spot price
where title is karat in thousands (14kt = 535, 18kt = 750, 22kt = 900m and so on...)
Once u know worthing of object u can try a good deal thinking the loss u can have during refining (dirty in chains, melting loss, no worthing stones in it, chemistry costs, electricity costs, time costs, and so on...).
Click to expand...
That give you spot value of the gold right? What do people usually pay to buy scrap? 80% of spot? 50%?
ALPHABiT said:
BTW, I can help you (same other guyz done with me here) showing you photo and method i used to make my own-machine and refining...
Click to expand...
Thanks, I think i'm going to invest some time on here. I now regret taking biology instead of chemistry way back when in High school :)
 
What do people usually pay to buy scrap? 80% of spot? 50%?
Click to expand...

Depends... I read on this forum guyz pays from 50 to 80%.

Here in italy we have lots of "buy gold shops" who buy about from 70%.

On Ebay, u can check, european prices for solid karat gold, often are more then spot.

I buy for my experiments with 10% too.

If you want to make business, find a refining company who pay for gold. I read they pay (not here in Italy!!! ARGH!) from 95 to 98% depending quantities: more quantities, more %.

I cant help about this, and other guyz from your zone can.
Really dunno law too about selling to companies in USA/CANADA or UK, because here in Italy u can sell giving your ID card only a MAX of 5000€ a month. After that autorithy can ask you where u got that gold, and u have to prove u have patent for buying/selling gold and gold u had was not from "thiefs" (u must have buying's receipts of quantities u sold).
 
ALPHABiT said:
Really dunno law too about selling to companies in USA/CANADA or UK, because here in Italy u can sell giving your ID card only a MAX of 5000€ a month. After that autorithy can ask you where u got that gold, and u have to prove u have patent for buying/selling gold and gold u had was not from "thiefs" (u must have buying's receipts of quantities u sold).
Click to expand...

Sounds alot like the Patriot Act and AML we have here. :?
 
Hey everyone thanks for the various replies, I am starting to gain useful knowledge and putting my ideas more into line.. I thought propane would suffice but now I know oxy-propane is a more efficient method of melting.

In reply to the various responses:

As far as I have been able to research as of 2002 there are no limits on customs and excise duties or tax to pay on processed gold, I am free to import and export as much as I like in any form OTHER THAN raw unprocessed gold and silver.

Using various calculators and my own calculations it appears scrap jewellery seems to go for less here in the UK then it does in the US compared to the spot price per oz. Maybe this is influenced by the strength and differentiation of the particulars of the currencies at the moment. Using simple calculations to work out the quantity of gold in a scrap lot of jewellery on eBay and * by the spot price the highest yields appear to be on lots on ebay.in and ebay.co.uk.

Maybe this is why I find it easier to comprehend buying, refining, and selling all on ebay then you guys in the US because it doesn’t appear as profitable? I know a few of you have said in the US you are holding on to your pure refined gold because you’re waiting for best time to sell.

Ok leaving the calculations marketing and trading aside, I recon I am pretty coherent with that, I really lack knowledge in the processing side...

ALPHABiT you said you could help me with the methods and custom machine you use, I would love that kind of help because I only know of ways which I have read from sites which are trying to sell me their products which obviously limits me to their ways as you said in the last post... Hope to hear from you soon.

Mat
 
Thank you ALPHABiT that answered a lot of my questions. I think i'll do the whole process just to see for myself. Take the loss from the first run just to have the fun/experience! That's what life is about afterall ;)
 
I was intending to sell the refined gold back on ebay, I have looked at every ounce of gold that has sold in the form of a bar, ingot or kruger, apart from the odd few lots which have more worth in the making they have all sold between £450 and £520 an ounce. I know I cannot produce such items starting out but I am assuming I can produce simple 1 oz bars with a nice respectable finish using buffing equipment and chemicals. I have also been in contact with the London Assay Office, they have quoted me as little as £7.00 per single unit required for analysis and hallmarking. With a hallmark on a finished bar or ingot I can’t see why I wouldn’t be able to fetch £450-£500 per ounce? Another thought would be to arrange a contract with a small or local jewellery maker/shop and supply to them, this would ease on the need for hallmarking and finishing.

Do many people try this are thinking this way?

Mat
 
Pour it into shot and sell it a couple grams at a time. I have seen several people do this on ebay and list it as 24k gold and get at the bare minimum at least spot value for it.
 
icedchetty said:
I was intending to sell the refined gold back on ebay, I have looked at every ounce of gold that has sold in the form of a bar, ingot or kruger, apart from the odd few lots which have more worth in the making they have all sold between £450 and £520 an ounce.

Mat
Click to expand...

Are those prices for raw bars or refinery pressed bars by known companies?
 
I would be interested to see an ebay auction for unmarked gold selling at or above spot. Everything I've seen sells for under spot. Subtract all your fees and your still not getting full price.

Item number: 160212250184

Here's 32.9g that went for $931.20 w/ free shipping. Spot was about $990. Take a couple percent off for final value fee, another bite from paypal, shipping and insurance (do you want to ship over an ounce of gold uninsured?).
 
It doesnt actually matter if it sells for under spot though does it, based on that auction 160212250184 the sellers pure gold sold for about £402 an ounce (£75) below spot price. Based on this, if one of us won auction 290218694712 where 230g of 9ct sold for £970, we refine it and sell it as a pure button we would have a profit margin of around £250 ($500) dollars to play with, deduct the refining cost, seller and logistics fees out of it I still think were very much quids in on it. To add to the item I have found Sheffield Assay Masters will stamp an item for as little as £0.62 now which would give the buyers confidence.

What do you guys recon? Have a look at the auctions and see what you make out of your own calculations.
 
I have had a similar problem of getting deals on gold but not being able to move it,
I do have the advantage that I can turn a lot of it into jewelry but it does not move enough to keep things turning at a high rate.

To solve this problem and the Ebay problem of how to sell fine gold but have people trust it. I simply had a coin die made to stamp professional coins from the gold.

I must say, sales are good. each tenth ounce is selling for $5 to $10 over spot per coin. And thats enough to make up for the Ebay fees, and it allows for very fast turn over.

I have also been offering the service of minting there gold and have had quite a few takers. Depending on the amount to be coined the fees have varied but its been in the %6 range for small lots of an ounce or so.
 
jewlerdave,

I would like to buy some 1/10 ounce coins on ebay. I searched for recycled coins but I can't find anything. Where can I look?
 

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