Hello from Amber

[Amber]

What a find this forum is! Thank you for putting it together.

I am here because I have a renewed interest in refining and many of my Google searches for info pointed me to your forum.

It happened like this... I went to a local auction and bought a jewelry box lot because there was one thing inside I wanted. When I went through the box I e-bayed some of the items and set aside the marked items (1/20 GF). Then I started looking for an acid test kit to check out some of the other stuff and have started a bucket of unmarked stuff I think is gold filled and plated. To prevent gold fever, I will only buy box lots if they are very cheap ($5) or there is something I want inside.

So what to do with stuff I set aside? Refineries will take it and charge a refining and assay fee, so that is one way to go. But 15 or more years ago I did refining with nitric acid, so I knew I could separate the gold out. Can I do it safely and not endanger myself or my cats? Is it cost effective? I am in the process of answering these questions. This forum looks like the go to place.

So far I have learned that I don't need to spend money on fancy equipment like a furnace or a put together refining system. Posts here also confirm my observation that e-bay buyers are paying top dollar for marked GF scrap, so why waste time and money? And nitric acid is not the only method which is good because I don't remember it being so expensive. I remember having two rather large metal containers that we paid a deposit on, and swapped empties with full ones like propane tanks. Seems like it was 60 bucks for that container - had to be 3-5 gallons. But that was long ago.

So hello and thanks again for all the great posts to dig into.

Amber

 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the forum amber.
My advice would be ebay.THe buyers pay an absolute premium amount for gold filled/rolled items.You won't have to mess with any chemicals,and trying to find another buyer for 24k.
I would just sell it the way it is,and chances are you will end up with the equivilant to full spot price,or in VERY many cases,more than spot.

 

[Amber]

No doubt about eBay - what are they doing with it? (rhetorical)

 

[jimdoc]

No doubt about eBay - what are they doing with it? (rhetorical)

Usually they pay a lot more than its worth on Ebay, then they buy a Shor system. Then they make a mess. Then they find this forum and ask how to get the gold out of the big mess they created. Well that is what it seems like sometimes. Its great when people find this forum first, and take the time to learn before jumping into it without the knowledge to succeed.

Jim

 

[element47]

I just sold 18 qty of these nice ceramic chips on ebay. Big ones, 1-3/4" on a side. The "chip yield list" posted recently (and also, recently pooh-poohed by members of this forum as to accuracy) claims these chips yield .1 gram each. So 18 of them is 1.8 grams = .057 tr oz gold. That's $83 with gold at $1440. After all ebay fees this auction yielded right about $100 to me. I think I am getting a better deal selling the chips with no effort and no chemical/refining involvement. Even if these chips yielded $166 (twice the alleged yield) and I only got $100 net net, unless my nitric was really really cheap, refining them would appear to have between a $20-$35 advantage over selling them. That's just scarcely worth it, in my book.

 

[Amber]

That is great example
It is a real mystery what they are doing with it. Maybe they get caught up in bidding. I have skipped many bag lots I would have liked because other bidders drove the price out of what I thought I could recover.
I picked up another bag lot last night with some really nice gold filled pieces. I'm going to eBay them also.
I do want to take a stab at some refining experiments. For fun not profit. But no sense is loosing money. I'm making my money back and some on eBay for the costume jewlry, so this would be a little gravy.
The other eBay market is in craft lots. Throw all the junk in a box and describe it as junk or craft and they bid up to $2 a pound or more. These people might actually be making craft jewelry. But I was happy to provide materials to them

 

[joem]

Move over Barren, Amber is the new profit making love of my life.
Great job Amber

 

[wrecker45]

maybe people bid high on e-bay hoping to make money if gold goes to $2000.00 an ounce in the next year.

 

[ArsenRefineries]

maybe people bid high on e-bay hoping to make money if gold goes to $2000.00 an ounce in the next year.

No they are just gold fever stricken.

 

[jeneje]

maybe people bid high on e-bay hoping to make money if gold goes to $2000.00 an ounce in the next year.

No they are just gold fever stricken.

One born every minute.... :lol:

 

[Amber]

Gold fever I think

The prices are not running up so high right now. I was checking because I have a small lot of 1/20 gf I was going to list. I read on eBay forums that summer is slow so now I will wait

I do have enough unmarked plated stuff to start the acquaintance experiments and I want to start with making corn flakes or shot. How deep does the pot of water you pour it into need to be? I suppose how much you melt maters. For small tests I was thinking a old spaghetti pot would do. For larger amounts a 5 gallon bucket

Any tips or recommended threads to read appreciated

 

[gold4mike]

If you do use a 5 gallon bucket please use a metal one. The shot will make a path through the water quickly and could melt into or through the bottom of your bucket.

 

[Anonymous]

The practice of "accurately" cornflaking,is difficult to get perfect.
The factors that need to be considered are,height of the drop and temperature of the material.
The molten material needs to be dropped from a height that will allow it time to gather inertia before hitting the water.Upon hitting the water,the surface tension of the water causes the material to "splatter"giving you the cornfalke effect.The problem is,if you do not have the material hot enough,or have it too elevated,it will solidify before entering the water.If the tempurature is too high,or the elevation is too low,then after entering the water,it will simply gather into the shape of least resistance which is a sphere,and that will defeat the purpose of cornflaking it.Here is a video showing proper shotting techniques. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aZYMqgXFy4&feature=related
If they were to elevate the shotting crucible higher,they would make cornflakes instead of shot.By the way,check out their other videos also,they are all very nice,and the music is great.(this coming from a diehard Rammstein fan).

 

[Amber]

Thank you. I think I'll look for an old stock pot at the thrift store.

 

[seawolf]

Before you corn flake plated material you may want to try deplating in a sulfuric acid cell. The plated items from my reading will only yield 2 - 2% gold. Nitric acid is expensive as is the disposal of the wastes. The sulfuric acid is reusable over and over. Lasersteve has a video showing its use.
Good luck and welcome aboard, Mark

 

[Amber]

Before you corn flake plated material you may want to try deplating in a sulfuric acid cell. The plated items from my reading will only yield 2 - 2% gold. Nitric acid is expensive as is the disposal of the wastes. The sulfuric acid is reusable over and over. Lasersteve has a video showing its use.
Good luck and welcome aboard, Mark

Thank you for your thoughts. I am considering both methods and their pros and cons. While I have not ruled anything out I am more familiar with the nitric method. Why is nitric so expensive?

 

[philddreamer]

Hi Amber!
If I may add some more tips.
I agree with Mark; it takes twice as much nitric to dissolve copper than it takes to dissolve silver, (about 38ml for silver/ 79ml for copper - per troy ounce).
Most gold plated jewelry is copper, some brass & some silver. Also, melting your plated items is going to be more difficult, since the temp required for melting copper is much higher. If you were to add silver or karat gold, then the temp required would be lower, but the nitric required for digesting the base metal is still too high. You should read the posts on Inquarting & watch Lazersteve's videos.

That's why the sulphuric cell, also in my opinion, would be a better option for recovering the gold from your plated items. If you have some karat gold, then use the steps recommended above by inquarting, (25% gold 75% silver). You could inquart with copper, but you'll need much more nitric...
Continue searching & reading the information available in this great forum & you will be successful.

Take care!

Phil