First time silver recovery/refining, too much nitric!

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Joined
Jan 20, 2025
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I haven't done this since college, and I remember why I didn't end up pursuing chemistry as a career. I was bad at it. Here, I mistakenly used an excess amount of nitric acid. By a factor of 10. I used 300 mL of nitric for my one ounce of 90% silver (five pre '64 quarters). And I know people may be aghast at using constitutional silver, but I've got about 20 lbs. of these, five won't kill me. And now my reaction has stalled. Liquid is blue with a slight tint of green, as it should be. Reaction is on a hot plate with a stir bar. I had the brownish gas and bubbling for a while, but now nothing. My quarters are not fully dissolved; what is my best course of action?
 
I haven't done this since college, and I remember why I didn't end up pursuing chemistry as a career. I was bad at it. Here, I mistakenly used an excess amount of nitric acid. By a factor of 10. I used 300 mL of nitric for my one ounce of 90% silver (five pre '64 quarters). And I know people may be aghast at using constitutional silver, but I've got about 20 lbs. of these, five won't kill me. And now my reaction has stalled. Liquid is blue with a slight tint of green, as it should be. Reaction is on a hot plate with a stir bar. I had the brownish gas and bubbling for a while, but now nothing. My quarters are not fully dissolved; what is my best course of action?
Welcome.
How much Silver was there?
 
I haven't done this since college, and I remember why I didn't end up pursuing chemistry as a career. I was bad at it. Here, I mistakenly used an excess amount of nitric acid. By a factor of 10. I used 300 mL of nitric for my one ounce of 90% silver (five pre '64 quarters). And I know people may be aghast at using constitutional silver, but I've got about 20 lbs. of these, five won't kill me. And now my reaction has stalled. Liquid is blue with a slight tint of green, as it should be. Reaction is on a hot plate with a stir bar. I had the brownish gas and bubbling for a while, but now nothing. My quarters are not fully dissolved; what is my best course of action?
Best action: (If you really want to destroy recognizable silver that has a known value for traders and collectors into something that needs to be tested and is not recognized by most "we buy pm shops"?)

Keep adding silver until nitric is used up.
edited to say:
I just read you have too much nitric, by a factor of 10, but the silver is not dissolving? Is there enough water to allow salts to go in solution?
Then you may have a traffic jam. Silver is waiting in line for some room before it can dissolve. Or the solution is too cold to allow salts to de dissolved.
 

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