Platinum price question

[Anonymous]

Ok I can’t hold back any longer so here goes. I have been reading around this forum for about 6 months using this user name and another one. The information I am soaking in is fantastic and I wanted to learn as much as possible before saying or asking anything. I have been selling scrap computer parts and jewelry to a local refinery for the last 15 yrs and had no idea how much money they have been making off me until the last month or so.

I found a place to recover some platinum and I think I am getting less than I should because of the way they calculate it.

So here is my question. The platinum pieces I sell them I had assayed and it came out 88.45% platinum and they have been paying me 85% of spot of there 90/10 pt/ir jewelry price.
On the 26th of December I sold 44.5 g and was paid $37.80 a gram.
On the 12th of December I sold 39.3 g and was paid $37.14 a gram.
(At the moment I cant remember the spot price for these 2 days)
Are they making a killing off me?
Right now I am sitting on a little over a hundred grams until I decide if I should ship it to a different refinery or still keep going back and getting taken.
According to the noxx gold chart (http://goldrefiningforum.com/goldpricelist.htm) they are calculating something different on the gold I take in and paying me less than the noxx chart.

Anyway I hope some of this makes sense and I would appreciate any advice or comments.

Thanks Gene

 

[scrapman1077]

Gene, Are you paying for the assay before you ship? And are "they" charging you for another? As I write, Kitco is paying $40.51 a gram for pure Platinum (they will assay if the material is not marked). Kitco charges about $30 for the assay. BTY , who are you dealing with? scrapman1077

 

[Anonymous]

They are small pins I guess you would call them each weighing .85g and I had one assayed locally and the cost was $75.00 to test the amount of platinum and to test for all metals in the platinum group and the report said 88.45% platinum and the rest unknown. A full assay would have cost me $250.00. The local refinery I am taking them too is having a full assay done right now at no charge to me at the same place I had mine done even though I took them a copy of the assay I had done. The pins all come from the same part with the same part number. So at this point I just spend a lot of time pulling the pins out of stainless and drive 20 miles and sell them.

There is a slight chance they are reading this message board so I would rather not say where I take them at the moment, maybe in a few days

Gene

 

[goldsilverpro]

I'd bet that everyone on the forum would like to know where these "pins" came from. Maybe, photos, one of the part and one of the pins. Tit for tat.

On the 12th, 85% of spot, per gram, was about $39+. On the 26th, it was $42. Was the 85% a flat charge, or, did they say, "We'll refine it and pay you 85% of spot?" I'm saying that maybe there were additional charges. Maybe, the assay was off. Maybe, they just had that refiner's itch and just HAD to take a little bit, with their magic pencil.

I do feel that, if the assays weren't done, they may have taken more from you. This is a key factor.

Surely, you're not going to trust the refiner's assay!!! I'd bet that they discover that their assay is a little bit higher this time. They want you back. They can shear a sheep many times, but you can only be skinned once. If they skin you, you'll never come back.

The numbers aren't perfect, but they aren't terrible, especially for platinum.

 

[Lou]

I dealt with Midwest Refineries a week ago or so. They pay 89% of market value, no assay charges, and they claim no fees. They also shorted me on my settlement check. They're quick if you want cash fast, but I won't recommend them til they make it right to me.



If you can afford it, I'd wait til you have about 1000g of Pt. Which is also 100g of iridium based off of your material, which is 1500 bucks right there.
Once you've got that much, you can actually talk to a big refiner and get 95% of spot and they're much nicer to you.

I'll bet your refinery isn't paying you for your iridium content, that's worth 500 an oz too ya know!



FYI, kitco.com has some very nice historical charts that show daily prices of precious metals. Don't let the refineries take you for a fool.

 

[Anonymous]

I ran into a need for some cash today so I took in 100.9g and after a bit of negotiating I got $37.87a gram. I also called kitco and talked to them and after explaining what they were he said he would probably pay 86% of spot on the day they get the assay back on what I send them (unless they find no PM’s the assay will cost me nothing supposedly).
I may try them or Midwest on my next batch.

As for where I take them..If you do a google search for gold refining and also the word cascade you will see the web site with there daily prices and where I have been taking my stuff to, as far as I know they are the only refinery in the state I live in.

I took all I had but some pieces I broke removing them so when I get the PT from the next batch next week I promise to post photos of the pins. (If I can figure out how to post them). I am going on an adventure this Friday until the middle of next week or I would do it sooner.

I really appreciate the responses and I plan to try and contribute here in the future and not be one of those that just lurks here for free information. The reason I waited so long to post is I did not want to ask any stupider questions than I have.

As far as where I get the platinum... It comes from a company that does the finish work on the parts and they are the ones damaged in shipping and the company they get them from does not want them back. I share what I get with the person that I get them from and he has not told me the name of the company that makes them yet but I am working on it and I got the part numbers off the ones I did already and found no information on the web.
Hopefully if I work things out the right way I hope to get the damaged ones and the old ones that they no longer use from the company that originally makes them or who they sell them to. If not I will give out all the info I have and let someone here try and get the damaged ones. I am sorry I can’t say more at this time but I think you understand.

The best advice I can give right now about platinum and other metals in this group is don’t get tunnel vision on jewelry, cats and thermocouples, think machine shops, the electrical conductivity of platinum and military grade stuff. It’s used in a lot more things than I ever imagined but I think most of you know this already.

Think positive and it will happen
Gene

 

[Anonymous]

Lou, on the assay I had done they used two different procedures and I had them test for Osmium, Iridium, Palladium, Rhodium, and Ruthenium and the report says none detected on all of them so I really don’t know what the other metal is yet.
One procedure said 88.45% PT and the other said 88.14% PT.

Let me know if Midwest makes things right for you if you get a chance.
Thanks Gene

 

[jimdoc]

Here is a link to a pdf of different platinum alloys used
in jewelry. It looks like tungston is used when a very
hard alloy is needed, I think that pins would fall into
that category. Pt850/W150 and Pt900/W100.

http://www.pgi-platinum-tech.com/pdf/V6N4.pdf

My guess is tungsten is the other metal in the pins.
Jim

 

[Harold_V]

As for where I take them..If you do a google search for gold refining and also the word cascade---

Cascade?

Has he told you the crucible broke in the furnace? One of his favorite lines he'd hand a customer that challenged a return, many years ago when we competed for the same customers.

Harold

 

[Lou]

If I were told by a refiner that the crucible broke I'd probably ask him why the hell he's telling me and that I hope he has a good time chipping it all out. And then I'd never do business with him again: anyone that lets a crucible get damaged enough to ''supposedly'' break in this type of business doesn't deserve to have my business.

Harold, you've probably heard every excuse in the book, but you don't seem like the type that uses them. Shame you still don't refine.

 

[Harold_V]

Harold, you've probably heard every excuse in the book, but you don't seem like the type that uses them. Shame you still don't refine.

Thanks for the kind words, Lou.

My very first customer was a crotchety old guy that eventually turned on me, just as he had all other refiners, in spite of the fact that I had done him personal favors and treated him like a brother or father, and had never cheated him in any way. He was suspicious of everything and everybody, but he taught me a valuable lesson right from the beginning. He complained, endlessly, about the dishonesty of refiners. From that I concluded that should I start refining for others, I should charge a reasonable fee, one that permitted me to make a profit (eventually, actually make a living), but DO NOT STEAL! That, alone, would likely lead to more and more customers as word spread. It was prophetic, it appears. In the end, I had customers in several states, thanks to word of mouth.

Cascade started business about the same time I started refining, although in my case it was strictly for my own pleasure. He did so with the distinct advantage of being well educated in chemistry. While I never met the man personally, his name (CW) was well known by me----and he was very instrumental in my business developing and prospering. The sole place we didn't compete is in processing electronic scrap, which I avoided. Over the long haul, he lost the majority of his customers to me, with a common complaint of being short changed. When challenged, according to an often repeated story, he'd make an adjustment, using the excuse that he had a crucible break in the furnace, so he couldn't account for the shortcoming, but had done his best. In my many years of refining-----I never had one crucible failure. I didn't buy his story.

For the record, I never, ever, made an adjustment on my findings. If the customer was unhappy, I simply suggested they find a new refiner. To do anything beyond that would be, in my opinion, an open admission that I had been dishonest with the settlement. Because I wasn't, I wasn't about to provide any evidence that would bolster their doubt.

One of the things that is difficult to overcome is the ignorance of your customers. Through the years I lost a total of six of them, as I recall. One of them, a young guy starting out, had received a piece of material that was silver, but had the coloration of gold (just sulfated, it was not plated). When his return reflected silver instead of gold, he concluded that I had stolen his metal, and ended our brief relationship. Sad thing is, once refined, you can't prove what you received. Had I had the good sense to contact him instead of processing ( I recognized what it was, but assumed he knew, as well), I could have returned his material in an "as received" condition, so he could place blame where it belonged. I was blind-sided by that episode. He wasn't interested in the truth.

Yes, Lou, I was painfully honest with my customers, right down to the statement that they lost a trace of their values every time I refined for them. I didn't spend much time washing filters, in part, to keep volumes low enough to stay with smaller vessels for refining. I often had my entire hotplate covered with beakers, with others waiting in the wings for a spot on the plate. If they wanted me to be 100% accountable, it would have added a lot of time to my process, so in order to keep my fee where it was, they lost a miniscule amount of metal to my eventual retirement. Each batch was flagged and run as an individual lot. I did not combine lots, therefore I didn't have need for assaying.

Honesty, in refining, as in all walks of life, is the best policy.

Harold