Silver purity

[Daio]

Hello all im very new here and just as new to the gold and silver game , I have amassed a nice amount of scrap silver (925) however when i smelt it how will i know its purity? is there a way to tell and to up its purity is there a ratio of using .999 silver to up it a bit for example 10g of 925 1 gram of 999? any info gratefully received
Dai

 

[Daio]

also apologies if this is in the wrong place or if its been asked a million times in this forum haha :lol:

 

[danieldavies]

refining 925 silver with nitric acid is the best option, in my opinion. what part of wales are you from?

 

[IdahoMole]

Welcome to the forum.
I mean no disrespect to you but I suggest you continue hording scrap and do some reading. Start with the safety section and then the silver section. You don't know what you don't know and your post shows that. For example you probably won't "smelt" anything but rather "refine" it, and you don't want to "add silver" but rather "remove copper".
It is all here for the taking but it does require doing your own homework. There is plenty of friendly help here when you need it but you need a basic understanding first. If you enjoy study and exercising your brain you will love it here, I do :lol:

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

Hello all im very new here and just as new to the gold and silver game , I have amassed a nice amount of scrap silver (925) however when i smelt it how will i know its purity? is there a way to tell and to up its purity is there a ratio of using .999 silver to up it a bit for example 10g of 925 1 gram of 999? any info gratefully received
Dai

Depends on what your end game is?
Are you selling it? If so, keep it as stamped, known quality metal.
-smelting the sterling will remove the marking and will make it questionable for any future buyer.

If you want to purify it, there are a couple schools of thought.
Both end up on the same path though.
-Either digest in nitric, cement on copper, melt, cornflake/shot, then run through a cell.
Or,
-Run through a breakdown silver cell, then a purity silver cell.
--that is jist the most basic,of outlines, the "silver" section of the forum will get you well on your way.

If you are truly just wanting a way to know purity
A volhard titration can you get pretty close, but it has initial expenses (beyond the nitric you will need to digest the sample before titrating)
Gay-Lussac titration(same)
XRF
Fire assay

None are really dirt cheap, and most have a small margin of error, but can be pretty darn accurate if everything is setup correctly and the operator is proficient.

 

[Daio]

refining 925 silver with nitric acid is the best option, in my opinion. what part of wales are you from?

i have seen some stuff with that on youtube and other websites ill look in to it more thanks, im from pembrokeshire south west wales

 

[Daio]

Welcome to the forum.
I mean no disrespect to you but I suggest you continue hording scrap and do some reading. Start with the safety section and then the silver section. You don't know what you don't know and your post shows that. For example you probably won't "smelt" anything but rather "refine" it, and you don't want to "add silver" but rather "remove copper".
It is all here for the taking but it does require doing your own homework. There is plenty of friendly help here when you need it but you need a basic understanding first. If you enjoy study and exercising your brain you will love it here, I do :lol:

lol no offence or disrespect taken and advice well heeded possibly poor choice of terminology of which im sure ill learn and correct myself using this forum

 

[Daio]

Hello all im very new here and just as new to the gold and silver game , I have amassed a nice amount of scrap silver (925) however when i smelt it how will i know its purity? is there a way to tell and to up its purity is there a ratio of using .999 silver to up it a bit for example 10g of 925 1 gram of 999? any info gratefully received
Dai

Depends on what your end game is?
Are you selling it? If so, keep it as stamped, known quality metal.
-smelting the sterling will remove the marking and will make it questionable for any future buyer.

If you want to purify it, there are a couple schools of thought.
Both end up on the same path though.
-Either digest in nitric, cement on copper, melt, cornflake/shot, then run through a cell.
Or,
-Run through a breakdown silver cell, then a purity silver cell.
--that is jist the most basic,of outlines, the "silver" section of the forum will get you well on your way.

If you are truly just wanting a way to know purity
A volhard titration can you get pretty close, but it has initial expenses (beyond the nitric you will need to digest the sample before titrating)
Gay-Lussac titration(same)
XRF
Fire assay

None are really dirt cheap, and most have a small margin of error, but can be pretty darn accurate if everything is setup correctly and the operator is proficient.

end game basically is to condense what i have instead of a huge bag of broken jewellery and the such that weighs say 100g have 1 bar that weighs the same all from 925 silver , to then sit in my ammo safe(cos i have nowhere better to hide it atm haha) untill i actually need to use it for hard cash, granted i know silver prices are not great atm but thats not an issue i intend to sit on it for a while more of an investment rather then a money making scheme doing the same thing with gold but do not have nearly enough gold to even make a 5 gram slip yet lol

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

My opinion, (take it for what its worth -from some interweb rando)
-Dont melt it down and condense it.

When you try to liquidate that equity later, it will cause you nothing but grief. Sure, you may be selling it to a reputable buyer that has an xrf they can fire at it, but they still may have reservations that it may be slugged. So they hit you hard on the price.

Another scenario, what if Al Gore's information super highway stops working, and the whole world goes into frantic pandemonium!?! Money is fiat, so the man down the block selling a loaf of bread wont take your fancy colored cotton paper (or plastic depending on your country). He suggests you keep it for toilet paper, and goes on to tell you that he made the bread with flour that was crushed by having his donkey pull a granite wheel over it. That makes it very time consuming as well as labor intensive, so he wont accept your unknown metal as payment. He doesnt want to take another gamble like the whole "banking system debit card/checkbook" scam... So, he tells you to go about your way.

Whats a man to do then?
Stupid hypothetical rhetoric aside...
Either refine it, have someone refine it, or trade it for fine silver if you want to condense the lot.

Melting the sterling would be the last thing I would do, ever, Id just as well keep it in bulk form. Why? Mainly because tons and tons of "sterling" isnt sterling but fake junk. Silverware handles have filling, some have solder; other articles have filler too. Its just too much risk to melt it before refining it.

Too long didnt read?
Dont melt known metal into unknown blobs, it severely loses value
-see the recent threads regarding the matter

 

[lazersteve]

You could also use it to inquart some dental scrap or karat jewelry. This way you get double the work out of your nitric acid and you get refined Ag at the tail end of the reaction.

Steve

 

[Daio]

My opinion, (take it for what its worth -from some interweb rando)
-Dont melt it down and condense it.

When you try to liquidate that equity later, it will cause you nothing but grief. Sure, you may be selling it to a reputable buyer that has an xrf they can fire at it, but they still may have reservations that it may be slugged. So they hit you hard on the price.

Another scenario, what if Al Gore's information super highway stops working, and the whole world goes into frantic pandemonium!?! Money is fiat, so the man down the block selling a loaf of bread wont take your fancy colored cotton paper (or plastic depending on your country). He suggests you keep it for toilet paper, and goes on to tell you that he made the bread with flour that was crushed by having his donkey pull a granite wheel over it. That makes it very time consuming as well as labor intensive, so he wont accept your unknown metal as payment. He doesnt want to take another gamble like the whole "banking system debit card/checkbook" scam... So, he tells you to go about your way.

Whats a man to do then?
Stupid hypothetical rhetoric aside...
Either refine it, have someone refine it, or trade it for fine silver if you want to condense the lot.

Melting the sterling would be the last thing I would do, ever, Id just as well keep it in bulk form. Why? Mainly because tons and tons of "sterling" isnt sterling but fake junk. Silverware handles have filling, some have solder; other articles have filler too. Its just too much risk to melt it before refining it.

Too long didnt read?
Dont melt known metal into unknown blobs, it severely loses value
-see the recent threads regarding the matter

good point, so would i better off trading it for refined marked silver? if so there hs to be a catch in there somewhere like i trade 30 grams and get 25g refined stamped silver??

 

[jimdoc]

It would work like this;
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=14782

Shipping will be the problem for this offer since you are not in the US, but it will give you an idea how it would work.

Or sell what you have on Ebay and buy whatever silver bars or rounds you want.

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

good point, so would i better off trading it for refined marked silver? if so there hs to be a catch in there somewhere like i trade 30 grams and get 25g refined stamped silver??

Yes, well, pretty much

There is always some "losses" (minimal -and it always comes out in the wash, weeks later) in recovering and refining silver.

Therea a thread open here where a gentleman has the offering of fine rounds for scrap silver. So thats one avenue.
Or,
Sell to a guy like me who will pay you a percentage of spot for the value of silver in the scrap.
Or,
Refine it yourself. Its a beautiful and rewarding skill. Not so much monetarily for me, as I just charge to cover chems usually. But, it gives great satisfaction to see the process in action, and know that the information you hold, very few people have. Wars have been waged, lives taken and lost for the information that is freely shared here now. Thats a very impowering thing my friend. So i suggest 3, then 1, then 2 in order best options.

But, I know its near impossible to get nitric over there so number 3 may be out

Number 1 is good, but you ship overseas, and I think there may be a couple week wait time (dont quote me on that)

Number 2, well, I will always buy silver, or refine silver and send back money or fine silver crystals or bars, whatever the person wants.
But, again, shipping overseas. And, I only pay 90% of spot on the silver content. (Which is determined after digest, cement, melt -2 day affair)

Anyways- the long, short (long) of it is. You have plenty of options. A lot more at the moment, than if you wouldve melted it and then come looking for avenues of approach.
So, take your time and look those options (i probably forgot a couple), weigh out the pros and cons, then stack your silver before everyone starts smoking flakka and eating each others faces like government bred mindless zombies.

Cheers!

 

[Daio]

It would work like this;
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=14782

Shipping will be the problem for this offer since you are not in the US, but it will give you an idea how it would work.

Or sell what you have on Ebay and buy whatever silver bars or rounds you want.

at deal isnt too bad yes being in the uk wouldn't be the simplest to do that exact deal but in Birmingham we have a massive silversmith/guild im sure i could come to some sort of arrangement like that with some 1 in uk

 

[Daio]

good point, so would i better off trading it for refined marked silver? if so there hs to be a catch in there somewhere like i trade 30 grams and get 25g refined stamped silver??

Yes, well, pretty much

There is always some "losses" (minimal -and it always comes out in the wash, weeks later) in recovering and refining silver.

Therea a thread open here where a gentleman has the offering of fine rounds for scrap silver. So thats one avenue.
Or,
Sell to a guy like me who will pay you a percentage of spot for the value of silver in the scrap.
Or,
Refine it yourself. Its a beautiful and rewarding skill. Not so much monetarily for me, as I just charge to cover chems usually. But, it gives great satisfaction to see the process in action, and know that the information you hold, very few people have. Wars have been waged, lives taken and lost for the information that is freely shared here now. Thats a very impowering thing my friend. So i suggest 3, then 1, then 2 in order best options.

But, I know its near impossible to get nitric over there so number 3 may be out

Number 1 is good, but you ship overseas, and I think there may be a couple week wait time (dont quote me on that)

Number 2, well, I will always buy silver, or refine silver and send back money or fine silver crystals or bars, whatever the person wants.
But, again, shipping overseas. And, I only pay 90% of spot on the silver content. (Which is determined after digest, cement, melt -2 day affair)

Anyways- the long, short (long) of it is. You have plenty of options. A lot more at the moment, than if you wouldve melted it and then come looking for avenues of approach.
So, take your time and look those options (i probably forgot a couple), weigh out the pros and cons, then stack your silver before everyone starts smoking flakka and eating each others faces like government bred mindless zombies.

Cheers!

yes as soon as u said that i checked the law and its quite hard to get nitric here unless u have a specific licence .....of which i do not i doubt they will give it to me with just a shotgun licence haha looks like ill have to send off to get refined or trade for 999 from a dealer

 

[Daio]

allthis being said now im guessing it would be same issue with gold then yes? if i melt it down people going to question if i have slapped a chunk of lead in to up the weight etc