Hi-Tech PMR Issues?

[wirelessdog]

For the past 18 months or so I have been dealing with Hi-Tech PMR.

I found them here on this forum and with the positive feedback from forum members I figured they would be a good bet.

I purchase from auctions and have a retail gold buying store.

Here are my questions and concerns:

1. What is acceptable melt loss? On silver lots, regardless of size, the melt is 2-4 ounces. This seems really high to me. Is it within acceptable standards? On Gold 8/10's of a pennyweight today on a small 40dwt lot. No stones, all clean.

2. Assay: I started using a refinery to maximize profits. More times than not, I would have equal if not more money selling to my old outlet who purchases based on acid test. He then sells to another middle man who then sells to a refinery. A friend told me my issue is mixing the karat value of my gold. He is a firm believer in melting different karat gold separately. Is there validity to this?

Here is my thing, what good is it to get 96% on silver and 98.5% on gold if you are losing on the melt and losing on the assay. I'm at my wits end and ready to go back to selling based on testing. What bothers my is how are there people paying Spot x .85 for sterling and Spot x .575 x .975 for 14k gold and still making money? Do I need to deal with a different refinery or am I doing something wrong.

 

[Dan Dement]

Wireless,

I have a retail store were I manufacturer Platinum & Palladium jewelry. I cash out several times a week and 99 times out of a 100% get within $50 on over $10,000 check to me tranactions. I melt everything that is gold together in an induction melter. My first suggestion would be for you to purchase an Alpha Mirage Specific Gravity scale. I have two of them and I get very accurate results on solid mass objects. Solid mass objects means solid, melted together, mixed ingots usually weighting in teh 300 grams area. Today, I cashed out a Gold Bar that weighted 312.06 grams Air Weight, 287.43 Water Weight, SG of 12.639, that figured 54.6 using a weighted Copper alloy. I then an 7 XRF readings that varied from 53.3316Au to 57.6604 AU that averaged 55.81% gold that I figured to be at 98.5% at $1387.50 gold to be $7.735.22 gross and $7619.19 net. NTR paid me $7,651.33 so I am $21. to the good on my figures. Happens this way 99 out of 100 times.

The whole key and survival in gold buying is the ability to quickly figure the gold. If do don't have a scientific method your guessing. Guessing will get you into lots of trouble.

Enclosed is my payout sheet.

Dan

 

[Lou]

Always two sides to the coin here.

Melt loss is very high unless assay goes up accordingly. Without having seen the material, I cannot comment one way or the other. Melt your own material, in any case. Clean, de-slagged bars have a neglible melt loss (if they are indeed a precious metal alloy and are not rife with volatiles like zinc, but even then, mass balance is preserved and again, assay goes up.

Coming from the perspective of a refiner...


How do you expect them to make money on 1.5% on a 40 dwt lot? If it were 40 dwt of 18 K and was dead plumb, they're probably grossing $50. Not much money for a lot of material handling.

 

[4metals]

To expand on Lou's point just a bit, the actual cost of melting is at least $45 if you figure in cost of crucibles (which don't last forever), fluxes, and amortization of your equipment. Then throw in labor for the guy melting and you're getting up there. That is without even considering a facility overhead cost. It is no wonder why most refiners used to charge minimum lot fees to cover this.

So in this new age of so many refiners (and scrap collectors) trying to eat from the same slice of pie, it amazes me that buyers can overlook that a refiner may have costs to deal with but from their own perspective, they know how far they can drive before it costs them too much to buy a small lot.

I have always said you will always get the best deal from a refiner if you let him charge what he has to charge and then be sure to hold him accountable. I will refrain from launching into how to do this again, it has been specified here on the forum before.

 

[MiguelRosas]

As many of you know - I like to personally address any issues that come up with any size lot. When first coming to this forum I pledged to do my best to change the perception of refiners, one client at a time.

Now I am fully aware that we are humans and we do make mistakes - it's my job to make sure we research what went wrong in order to address, correct and rectify any losses - But I can only do that if I (or any member of Hi-Tech) is made aware of your dissatisfaction at the time of the melt.

That gives us plenty of options: 1) Re-assay the sample. 2) Re-melt the bar / new sample 3) Perform a fire assay on sample 4) return bar to customer (at no cost / fee)

Like Lou and 4 Metals have said - we do work on VERY small margins, and this is simply a volume business (unless someone cheats), but I never want that to be the thought that comes to mind when dealing with Hi-Tech. And Dan is right in saying that Guessing values can be costly.

Wanting a win win relationship, give me the opportunity to figure out where the difference lies between your expectations and our results.

I've personally had a lot of success with members of this forum, and I continue to strive to help others as well. If there ever is any questions about your lot - please reach out to me personally, and I will get it taken care of.

Miguel Rosas
972-239-0597

 

[4metals]

There ya go Dog!

Please report back to keep our members up to date.

And thank you Miguel!

 

[kurt]

Here is a pic of a ring I purchased not long ago (cheap rumage sale find) - it tested as 8 kt on our XRF - so I put it in nitric & boiled it to leach the base metal out - notice how the bottom (which is the top of the ring in the pic) completely disolved away where as the rest of the ring retained its shape --- Why?

Because the ring had been up sized & in doing so they cut the ring spread it & then filled the gap with copper & then plated the ring to hide the copper used to fill the gap (the foil from the copper filled gap was found in the bottom of the beaker)

This is just an example of something that is going to ad up to unexpected melt loss when its in the mix of unmelted/untested scrap sent into the refiner

Kurt

 

[4metals]

Another example of this is when manufacturers use lower karat solder because it has a lower melting point and it is easier to use. Years ago I did large manufacturers stone removal on tennis bracelets, they have a lot of soldering involved in their manufacture. The gold yield always came out lower than expected. Because the lots were always made up of the same karat feedstock, I had an idea after subtracting the weight of the stones how much gold should be there. It was always at least 2% lower but the manufacturer never complained about the return. Since he never complained I finally asked him why the assay ran so low. He told me that as much as 15% of tennis bracelets metal weight is solder and they have a lower karat solder made so the soldering is easier because the pieces they are soldering are thin.

2% lower assay can add up to real money as we always processed 500 ounces or better in each lot. The manufacturer knew this and was good with his return, but a scrap buyer would be expecting that 2% to be there and would come up short. Of course the scrap buyer is never wrong, it must be the refiner!

 

[Westerngs]

4Metals,

Cases such as the one you state are the reason why the National Gold and Silver Stamping Act requires that jewelry pieces be tested as a whole, and not by cutting pieces away for assay.

It does allow for variations due to solder, but the entire piece, solder included, must be within 0.3% of the stated karat. So 10K jewelry pieces, for example, cannot assay lower than 41.37% Au

For sterling, the allowed variance is 0.5% low, so the piece cannot assay below 92% Ag

 

[4metals]

I know what the karating laws say, and I also know what the fire assays say when some goods that are sold as plumb are melted into bars and assayed.

I've seen sterling jewelry all marked .925 melted into a bar and assay .90. Technically that is illegal. We live in a world where you can buy fake gold and silver bars for which I see no other purpose than to dupe someone, as a result I believe in only 1 thing, melt and assay.

Refiners work at a fraction of a percent margins, scrap buyers do a bit better, today you have to know what you are buying or have room in your payout or you may as well lock the door and go fishing.

 

[nickvc]

I'm with 4metals on this, I only believe what my melt and assay result tells me. The laws on hallmarks here in the UK are much stricter than in the US but allowances are made for strengthening materials such as plastic or stainless steel inside hollow earrings and bangles and for below karat solders for 18 k white and high karat alloys and silver where the solders wouldnt work at plum assays. I always suggest that people who buy karat scrap at least put it through an ultrasonic and dry it before sending it for melting, that dead skin, hand cream and bits of food add up and all catches have steel springs. IMHO anyone who doesn't at least melt their own scrap is heading for a skinning at some point and without been there to witness the melt how are you going to prove anything.....

 

[FrugalRefiner]

4Metals,

Cases such as the one you state are the reason why the National Gold and Silver Stamping Act requires that jewelry pieces be tested as a whole, and not by cutting pieces away for assay.

It does allow for variations due to solder, but the entire piece, solder included, must be within 0.3% of the stated karat. So 10K jewelry pieces, for example, cannot assay lower than 41.37% Au

For sterling, the allowed variance is 0.5% low, so the piece cannot assay below 92% Ag

The way I read the law, the three one-thousandth part allowance is for any part of the article that does not have any solder. If the article includes solder, then the total allwance is seven one-thousandth parts for the whole article.

For silver the allowance is four one-thousandth parts for the part of an article that has no solder and ten one-thousandth parts for the entire article if it contains solder.

Dave