New here and wondering

phankins11 · Mar 5, 2012

Hi all, I've been out here reading over the last week. One thing is for sure, there is a wealth of knowledge and it seems like people have been very generous in sharing it, especially given the economic climate here in the States and what gold and silver have been doing and will continue to do. I'm from Muncie, IN...not sure if there are many on this forum from my area, it be nice to know though. Any way, figured I'd introduce myself.

I do have a question for starters...

I know a week is no where near the time it'll take to learn this stuff. I think I read a post here where someone had read and studied out here for 2 years before they actually did anything. I'm probably too antsy to wait that long...LOL, but one thing I haven't found out here is the reason all you do this. Now, I'm sure that sounds like an ambiguous question so let me see if I can help zero in on what I'm looking for.

I'm sure some here do it for a hobby, some do it as a way to make money maybe, some do it to augment their wealth. What I'm trying to do if figure out if this is a good way to spend my time. The reason I ended up here, was because I've been studying and researching investing in silver and gold. I am not blind to what is going on with the US dollar, and so I'm trying to make the best use of my time and money in preparing for the dollar to tank. Is this a way I can build up wealth via precious metals, or is this just something that most do as an interest and the precious metals are just the icing on the cake? As a father of 2 kids with a wife who works outside the home, and myself working a full time job, is the time vs. reward big enough to invest additional money and time into this kind of thing.

I'd be interested in everyone's thoughts and their personal reasons as to why they do this.

PJ

element47 · Mar 5, 2012

You ask great questions. There are a variety of reasons why folks on this forum do what they do. Some are very, very skilled refiners, really in the business of refining many many kilos of material, with substantial investment in plant and gear, with employees, with genuine places of business. On this forum there are perhaps half a dozen real, genuine commercial-grade refiners with 150 years of real world experience among them. I can guarantee you will not get the benefit of their knowledge, freely given anywhere else. This is assuming you have the work ethic to really try to search out the answers to your newbie questions so the veterans do not have to answer said newb questions for the 537th time. It is unfair to make them do that. And they won't.

Some folks are only hobbyists, perhaps they are interested in handling small quantities, perhaps (or perhaps not) with the idea of scaling up their operations to larger scale. This is not an easy business, let's dispel that notion right away. It is 100 times easier to buy scrap jewelry and simply resell same as is, with zero chemical involvement, to a real refiner...but maybe not any more since there are hundreds of people doing exactly this.

People do not sell their gold, even their junk gold/silver all that cheap. If you are going to chemically process (as opposed to resell) your incoming materials, you need the proper safety gear ON THE FIRST GRAM of material you decide to refine. Yet you will not be able to pay for it (your safety gear) and your chemicals without [SUCCESSFULLY] processing some number of ounces of material, in the case of silver, maybe 40-50-100 ounces. So there is this consideration of, if you are going to get involved with chems and safety gear, you'll need to work through plenty more than a coffee cup worth of raw material. Can you source it? If you can't get this kind of material any cheaper than any other Joe Blow, then in my view you could have a tough time overcoming the MANDATORY expenses of safety gear and chemicals needed to get into the game in the first place. Don't kid yourself. You're not going to be able to buy scrap jewelry or sterling for free, or for 10 cents on the dollar. You may be very lucky and get this stuff for 50 or 60 or 70 cents on the dollar. But smarter sellers can get 80 cents on the dollar and this is what you'll be fighting in terms of making this a profitable enterprise. Some folks on this forum concentrate on escrap and can achieve visible results from the relatively safer methods involved. But they have to take apart 30-50 computers to get any visible gold. Yes, they can get various base metals of the dead computers in modest quantity and make some twenties of dollars therefrom, but you spoke about PMs, which is the general focus of the forum.

And finally but by no means least importantly, you must think really, really carefully about having the chems and fumes around if you have kids. All the gold you are likely to be able to refine in your backyard in a primitive setup isn't worth what you will go through if any of your kids suffer serious injury as a result of chemical or fume exposure. Or, you, and your eyesight, for example.

Harold_V · Mar 6, 2012

Mull this over in your mind.
Turn of the 20th Century, gold was valued @ $20.67/troy ounce. The troy ounce, then, just as is true today, contained 480 grains of gold. Today it sells for roughly $1,700/ounce.
In the early 70's (before it was legal to do so without a federal license), I started a clandestine refining hobby. Gold, then, was under $100/ounce. I managed to salt away a few ounces. They have done far better than the miserable investment I was advised to buy, to secure my old age.

Economists have long proclaimed gold as a poor investment.

Yep. Doesn't pay dividends. It must be stored. You risk being robbed, maybe even killed, assuming you're stupid enough to store it in your home. Criminals never see things rationally---no consideration that you aren't that stupid. They are, so why shouldn't you be?

The guy that started accumulating gold the moment it was legal to do so, has stayed abreast of the declining dollar. He has not lost his buying power, unlike almost all others. Even land, today, is not readily liquidated, and in many cases has sustained a decline in value, very unlike gold and other precious metals.

I believe in gold. The problem is, most US citizens have no respect for the metal, very unlike other nations. India, for one, comes to mind.

Don't get involved in gold refining because you expect you'll get rich. That's particularly true if you get involved in escrap. Get involved because you enjoy the recovery, and especially enjoy accumulating a humble amount of gold. That's a rather satisfying experience. If you happen to *hit it big*, so much the better.

Harold

phankins11 · Mar 6, 2012

Element47 and Harold_V, thanks for the replies. Harold_v I especially like you paradigm, protecting my buying power, is what I'm after.

nickvc · Mar 7, 2012

One has to say in your case refining may not be for you unless you have a shack that can be locked and kept child proof, it's just not worth the risk IMHO.
That doesn't mean you can't become involved in precious metals, the forum has many members who don't refine but urban mine and recover values from others trash. If you start reading in depth on here you will find threads that give details of what to look for apart from the obvious pins, fingers and CPUs, there's details of what base metals can be recovered and sold and for how much, there's threads covering silver contacts and any source of values the members have discovered, it's literally a gold mine if you do your homework.
If you cherry pick the items you can sell the parts or have them toll refined,you can sell the stripped boards once you have volume and from all this activity you can buy karat scrap,coins or bullion from your profits.
You can buy and sell karat scrap but this takes money and competition is getting tougher and prices do go down as well as up as this week has proved..
The list is almost endless of how you can become involved without refining or using chemicals that pose a risk to your kids, it's all here, you just have to identify which area you can find your values from and then how to maximise the returns.
E scrap you won't get rich from as Harold has pointed out, unless you can source volumes, but you can accumulate values, read Joem,s thread about his advertising, he's spreading his net wider and wider and while not making huge money is making money that adds to the family income but it takes time and effort and if you don't want to invest that, forget becoming involved.
For most members this is a hobby but one that with knowledge and the necessary effort will produce a return, not a large one perhaps considering the hours put in but one that gives you the possibility of holding gold and silver that you have recovered with your own hands.
Welcome to the forum.