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[RustyBunny]

Hi, my name is RustyBunny. I came back to Oregon where my folks came to after departing Alaska. I was born in Whitehorse Canada. My mom said I was not suppose to be born there, but such is life, it sometimes just happens. I am a tradesperson union boiler fitter. I am mostly retired, now. I moved to Newport Oregon because the fishing is great. Crab is almost always available. Everything rusts on the coast even stainless steel rusts. I have been collecting sterling silver for most of my adult life. I have a few buckets full of the stuff. I want to turn it into fine silver. I am not a chemist. I have read some of the posts on this forum and decided to make an account.. and it directed me to introduce myself to you-all. I will continue to read the posts and edumuncate myself in the arts. If anyone needs a rustybunny drop me a line. cheers

 

[Martijn]

Welcome to the forum.
If this silver is the only thing you will process, I would advise going for a silver nitrate cell, you can look for @lazersteve his posts, he has a full circle nitric free way to process and keep the electrolyte reusable. if you can get some nitrate, you can do without buying the hard to get HNO3.

But most important; what is your goal with this pure silver? sell it? or use it? because your cost to refine will cut on your profit compared to just selling marked sterling.

Martijn.

 

[billgold]

Whether it is more profitable to sell to a buyer or refine it yourself depends on the buyers available. Pawn shops and most "We buy Gold" buyers will rip you off. With diligence, you should be able to find a coin shop that will pay a reasonable percentage of the spot price.

How much is the approximate weight of the sterling? Two buckets full should be in the hundreds of Toz.

 

[RustyBunny]

I have been a user of a metal detector since about 1969 when my father handed me a Whites coinmaster. Living in Skagway we has access to a plethora of old abandoned mining sites and we did find gold, silver. My father dealt with the refinement of the gold we all found. I hate the cold. I spent a number of years in California employed by the boilermakers union, detecting was a hobby. My findings were tossed into a bucket in the closet. Occasionally Id run my change through a rock tumbler and turn them in at the main bank. Now that I am mostly retired I detect less. I have made some silver jewelry, but I have so much of it that I have found I just want to turn what I have into bars. I think the easiest would be to turn it into crystal and melt the crystal into bars. Bars would stack better in my safe. I have a step brother that owns a pawn shop in Seattle. Currently I have no interest in selling. I just need it to fit in my safe. Perhaps when my daughter inherits all that I have she can deal with it.

 

[4metals]

Welcome to the forum

Your idea of processing the Silver into bars is a good one and it can be an entertaining hobby. You can make small cells from
Stainless steel bowls or larger cells in aquarium tanks all sized to how much and how fast you want to process it. In the early ‘70’s I refined 18,000 oz of sterling in a 10
Gallon fish tank in my barn. I had time to do it without any rush and leisurely over a bit more than a year I processed it all. So don’t get the idea that you cannot do a size-able collection of Silver even get into your head!

Good luck, read up here on the forum and don’t be shy about asking for help if you need it.