PlainsScrapper
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2014
- Messages
- 46
It's been a long while since I last posted, but I wanted to add this info as a lot of focus is on the old Hammond and Yamaha Organs and not really any other ones, so I'd thought I'd make a bit of a contribution 
About 10 years ago my local Baptist Church was upgrading their organ, and let me have the control board with several dozen of these Reisner Relay Switches with silvery-looking pins, silvery-looking bus bars, and flat-bladed contacts under these pins attached to a sturdy, HEAVY wooden frame.
Since I was aware of silver and other PMs in older organs, I decided to keep all these suspicious parts aside from a large amount of wire and some solenoids, even if I had no means to test at the time.
Aside from lots of copper wire for all the solenoids and TONS of lead as well as zinc for some of the newer switches, when I went to the coin shop to sell some jewelry this past week out of random curiosity I asked for them to test one of the bus bars, and while I only expected plating, it turned out to be made of sterling silver with trace gold! I then decided to check out the other two parts- the relay pins and metal strip under the solenoid, and the pins were also tested as sterling.
The flat foils were straightened out and placed in dil. acetic acid overnight to remove the iron oxide. When I brought the other material back, they tested to be 80% silver. Ended up with over 200 grams of material that I sold to a jewelry shop for $120, the best deal I could find around my area (the coin shop would've been a ripoff at only $77!!). Pretty happy overall and REALLY glad I didn't just chuck them away in scrap metal.
Results:
Out of ~215 g mixed silver
~177 g sterling (pins and bus bars)
~38 g 80% silver (shiny flat blade)
Total Value (at 17 Jul 23 Prices) $150.28
More than happy getting 80% of the value of the silver, especially silver I had no idea about!
About 10 years ago my local Baptist Church was upgrading their organ, and let me have the control board with several dozen of these Reisner Relay Switches with silvery-looking pins, silvery-looking bus bars, and flat-bladed contacts under these pins attached to a sturdy, HEAVY wooden frame.
Since I was aware of silver and other PMs in older organs, I decided to keep all these suspicious parts aside from a large amount of wire and some solenoids, even if I had no means to test at the time.
Aside from lots of copper wire for all the solenoids and TONS of lead as well as zinc for some of the newer switches, when I went to the coin shop to sell some jewelry this past week out of random curiosity I asked for them to test one of the bus bars, and while I only expected plating, it turned out to be made of sterling silver with trace gold! I then decided to check out the other two parts- the relay pins and metal strip under the solenoid, and the pins were also tested as sterling.
The flat foils were straightened out and placed in dil. acetic acid overnight to remove the iron oxide. When I brought the other material back, they tested to be 80% silver. Ended up with over 200 grams of material that I sold to a jewelry shop for $120, the best deal I could find around my area (the coin shop would've been a ripoff at only $77!!). Pretty happy overall and REALLY glad I didn't just chuck them away in scrap metal.
Results:
Out of ~215 g mixed silver
~177 g sterling (pins and bus bars)
~38 g 80% silver (shiny flat blade)
Total Value (at 17 Jul 23 Prices) $150.28
More than happy getting 80% of the value of the silver, especially silver I had no idea about!
