The Best of Ebay

[rickbb]

The guy's not even trying to make a believable con.

 

[etack]

Look At this. Makes me wish I hadn't sold all my new plugs to a re-seller. I had several hundred Deutsch connectors. I thought I did great at $5.00 each.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1700-grams-Military-grade-contact-pins-connectors-for-scrap-gold-recovery-/301039981406?ssPageName=ADME:B:WNA:US:3160

Eric

 

[macfixer01]

Yeah prices are crazy on Ebay anymore. Sellers ignore that gold is only worth about 65% now of what it was at it's peak in September 2011 and ask insane prices. Unfortunately some buyers are willing to pay them.

I've been watching this auction for a mangled 22K ring. It's already about $6 over the current value of the gold and still has 28 hours to go. I mean come on! This isn't a wearable item and nobody is paying more for the artistry or maker's name. I suppose some people will claim it's shill bidding, and some bids may be just sour grapes driving up the price. At the end though, somebody is going to end up buying it and they're throwing away money.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/111237680056?

macfixer01

 

[phxdale]

Seeing how outrageous some of these items go for on Ebay I decided to sell a little gold I refined and then use the money to buy some scrap silver. I had about 3.3 grams of gold I dropped out of aqua regia with smb.
I melted it down and then flattened it and punched "1/10 OZT" on one side and "24 k" on the other side. I figured it was worth $110 -120 or so. Put it up for sale starting at $1.00 and no reserve and free shipping.

Ended up selling for $76. I was bummed. Oh well live and learn. Don't start them so low or at least put a reserve on it.

Found someone selling a silver ribbon used for brazing 331 grams. 68% silver works out to 7 oz of silver. I like to try to get silver at $12 an OZ or less. Bid 96 and win at $72. Perfect. Not enough for the gold but good deal on the silver.

A few Days later I am notified by Ebay that the buyer opened a case against me and wants his money back. Claims that what he bought differed then what was described. He got a steal on my gold and now he wants his money back?? Well I couldn't agree to send his money back fast enough. A couple days after that I got the gold back. Figured I would just sell it locally.

Place right behind my house advertises they buy gold. Took it there and they tested it and said it did not pass 22k test. Offered me $60. What??
Said I wanted $100 and should be at the very least 22k if not 23 or 24.
Repeated the test and they rubbed the acid bottle across the line trying to rub it off and told me "its starting to fade so is not 22k".
Took my gold to another place close by. Used an electric pen of some type and told me it must be plated and they were not interested.
You have got to be kidding me.

So went home and did some searches on best place to sell gold in Phoenix. One little place across town had a bunch of good reviews so decided to go there. They looked at it. Said it doesn't look like 24k but passes 22k test so is 22k or 23k offered me $100. Fair price I thought.
Enough for me and a little for them also.

Gave good feedback to my buyer with response "$120 of gold for $76 returned and sold to gold dealer for $100 Thank You"

 

[macfixer01]

Seeing how outrageous some of these items go for on Ebay I decided to sell a little gold I refined and then use the money to buy some scrap silver. I had about 3.3 grams of gold I dropped out of aqua regia with smb.
I melted it down and then flattened it and punched "1/10 OZT" on one side and "24 k" on the other side. I figured it was worth $110 -120 or so. Put it up for sale starting at $1.00 and no reserve and free shipping.

Ended up selling for $76. I was bummed. Oh well live and learn. Don't start them so low or at least put a reserve on it.

Found someone selling a silver ribbon used for brazing 331 grams. 68% silver works out to 7 oz of silver. I like to try to get silver at $12 an OZ or less. Bid 96 and win at $72. Perfect. Not enough for the gold but good deal on the silver.

A few Days later I am notified by Ebay that the buyer opened a case against me and wants his money back. Claims that what he bought differed then what was described. He got a steal on my gold and now he wants his money back?? Well I couldn't agree to send his money back fast enough. A couple days after that I got the gold back. Figured I would just sell it locally.

Place right behind my house advertises they buy gold. Took it there and they tested it and said it did not pass 22k test. Offered me $60. What??
Said I wanted $100 and should be at the very least 22k if not 23 or 24.
Repeated the test and they rubbed the acid bottle across the line trying to rub it off and told me "its starting to fade so is not 22k".
Took my gold to another place close by. Used an electric pen of some type and told me it must be plated and they were not interested.
You have got to be kidding me.

So went home and did some searches on best place to sell gold in Phoenix. One little place across town had a bunch of good reviews so decided to go there. They looked at it. Said it doesn't look like 24k but passes 22k test so is 22k or 23k offered me $100. Fair price I thought.
Enough for me and a little for them also.

Gave good feedback to my buyer with response "$120 of gold for $76 returned and sold to gold dealer for $100 Thank You"

I've bought a few buttons off Ebay from time to time over the last several years. That is if I can get it for under spot, if the description really sounds like the seller knew what he was doing producing the bead, the seller has good feedback and offers a return guarantee, and mainly if the bead looks good color and quality with a nice pipe. I just saw an auction a couple days ago where the seller was offering around a 3 gram 22K bead he'd made but then hammered the bead flat. I didn't even bother computing it's value at that point as I wasn't interested. I think you're doing your hard work a disservice by flattening and stamping it.

 

[phxdale]

That was my auction. After it was returned I put it back up starting at $90 and had no bids. You are right, should have just kept it in a bead. Looks great when I do it with a half oz of silver but should not have done that with the gold.

 

[butcher]

phxdale,
Please do not take this wrong.
I feel you are still very new to this, and there is still a lot you do not understand, I do not know how well you "refined that gold", but it was obviously not 24K and possibly not 22K, one problem is even if you "refined it" you can lose money in selling it, if the refining has not been done properly, let me try to explain.

You take some gold scrap, recover and attempt to refine the gold, but you do not do as good of a job as you think you are doing, you melt a button of gold, but the gold has no pipe to show its purity, say it is 23K. you think you should have 24K, you take it to your buyer he tests the gold and can pay for 18K, is the buyer Honest, is he willing to pay a fair price claiming your gold is 18K? yes he is, as that is all he can test for, so you loose money or some of your gold.

By marking your gold to 24K, you could hurt yourself to those potential customers, you believed your gold had to be close to 24K because you have studied some and you "refined it", when in actuality your gold was most likely not nearly as pure as you believed it to be, or hoped it to be.

You possibly had base metals in the hammered button that showed up during testing of your stamped gold, that obviously showed the buyers that the gold was not 24K, or no where near it. Also making you look dishonest (even if you we not), then making these buyers even more suspect of your gold its purity, and you as a honest person, or knowledgeable gold refiner.

This also does not help your reputation with these potential buyers later, or their confidence in you being " A gold refiner" or in your skills or your Honesty.

Depending on your gold, and the tests they used those potential buyers could have been very honest with you telling you your gold was plated or of very low karat, that is what their tests showed them, that is all they have to go by to decide what the gold you wish to sell them is worth, if the electronic pen tested the 24K marked flattened button, and read base metals, and some gold, then that is what the buyer uses to judge if he will risk spending his money on your product or the gold you are trying to sell him, he is being honest with you, your gold as far as he is concerned is just plated, and is not worth what you think it is, he does not know you, and may feel you either do not know what you are doing "refining", or that you may have been trying to pull the wool over his eyes melting some electronic pins smashing the button to a coin and marking it 24K, to cheat him out of his hard earned money.

I think you just need to learn to refine your gold better, You will but you have a lot of learning and work ahead of you, you need to learn to get your gold to a high purity (that is obvious by the pipe to the knowledgeable buyer), build your skills and your reputation as a gold refiner. You have a lot more learning ahead of you.

My guess is that 24K stamped gold is no way near pure gold and contains much base metals, I also guess that it may contain a lot more gold than the buyers who turned it down believed it to have.

I think you should put that stamped gold in your pocket for now, do more study to get further in your education, and skill, and after you are ready refine it again so that you can sell it for what it is worth, and you and the buyer will be happy, and you can then gain trust as a gold refiner.

 

[macfixer01]

That was my auction. After it was returned I put it back up starting at $90 and had no bids. You are right, should have just kept it in a bead. Looks great when I do it with a half oz of silver but should not have done that with the gold.

Hmmm... Well you may be correct there. If I thought it was your auction I'd have said so, but I really didn't recall seeing a stamp on the hammered piece I had looked at? In any case the auction I saw on Ebay is gone now, so was probably yours.

Just to add to what Butcher said, it's a good thing you took your gold to a couple different buyers. I'd avoid those that low-balled you in the future, since I've heard some unscrupulous we-buy-gold shops use overly strong acids to make your gold appear to be less pure than it is.

 

[Palladium]

I use to sell small sample lots of 24 karat gold on ebay. Then i got to thinking what is to stop them from buying your gold and then filing a claim as item not described, getting a refund, and mailing you back a junk bar or button? You could argue with ebay or paypal, but in the end you have no way of proving your point anymore than the other guy and then you are out the gold and your money. Double wammy!!!
If you need to sell any in the future i can help you out at 95%. Of course i would re-refine it and pay you based on the numbers, but i won't charge you any fee's for the refining besides the 5% which i don't make anything off of it only my buyer does.

 

[phxdale]

No offense taken what so ever. If you will take the time typeing up what I did wrong and explain I'd be stupid to take it wrong. I will certainly listen. Yes I am very new to this. This is the first time I have sold anything I have refined and would have been better off leaving well enough alone and sold it as a button, explained the process I used and let the buyer decide by the picture. Live and learn that is what I will do next time.

In this case I was just amazed that the first place I went to tried to rip me off and this was from a neighbor, the building is right behind my house. FIgured I would help the local business out a little. I would rather see local businesses suceed. I also live by a bar that I'll have a drink at now and then and a chineese resteraunt, I eat at occasionally.
Yes marking it 24k before any test was done was a big mistake.
I feel pretty confident that the gold was at least 22k and it passed a 22k acid test at the place that was honest. I asked that guy what karat he thought it was and he said "doesn't look like 24k to me but 22 or 23" and is what I thought too.
The place with the pen test, he did not know what he was doing or had a faulty pen or something. ?? A bunch of base metals still in it. No.
I will defend myself there.
If that was the case the honest place would not have bought it either.
It was nice colored powder before I melted it down. First time it was dark brown, melted it poured it. Then repeated so I could clearly see the difference.
But I certainly see the point you are making and taking it to heart.
Everything you said, absolutely true (except for being a bunch of base metals in my gold) expecially for my silver I have done. I have had people look at little 2 ounce bricks and 1 ounce 1 inch rounds and want to buy them but told them no, not until I get better at it. Like you said put in your pocket. Exactly what I am doing and now starting to work on setting up a silver cell.
Actually that was gold from Electronic scrap and to me its way too messy for such a small amount in return. You need tons of scrap to make it worthwile. I was selling it and I am done gold.

I like refining scrap silver much, much more. Dealing with ounces and pounds rather then grams. Here is a pic of one of my first 2 oz ingots from silver. Melted down using cold nitric acid, converted to chloride (since alot of it went that way when dissolving) then converted using aluminum foil and pool acid and a blender. Also learning how to melt and pour with a cutting torch. This one I poured and then hit it with the torch for a split second after the pour for the ripple effect. No polish or anything just stamped it 2 OZT and it does weigh that much spot on.
On the right side you can see a couple of specs of borax that was floating on the silver when I poured it. Again looks much better then the pic but pretty happy with it for the first time, and very glad I did not blow myself up when the hose ruptured when I was melting it down.

 

[phxdale]

Man do I need a better camera or what. LOL.

 

[butcher]

phxdale,

Depending on the method used to test the gold can depend on the results, with the testing pen, XRF, or other surface tests, you may be reading base metal oxides on the surface of the gold,and have a false indication of what is actually inside, remember you are only reading the surface or a spot or two, to get an idea of the gold content of the whole piece of metal, these tests done can also depend on the operator or his equipment used in testing.


Some of the surface tests may give an idea, but they only read the surface, the test on the stone with acid will test that gold scrapped off on the stone, it can only be judged to gold content as to how the acids react with that mark, if testing needles are used you may be able to detect the gold content in a certain range but still maybe be a couple of karats off.

Some of these tests are better than others depending on what the purpose of the test is, In a way in many instances testing is not an exact science, (especially at your local we buy gold shops), but it better than the alternative of the guessing game, many times these tests are good enough to give us a fairly accurate idea of what we have, again some tests would be better than others to determine, other factors such as operator skill or knowledge, and the testing tool he is using or his knowledge of the test.

Most gold buyers are just trying to verify if the gold ring marked 14K is real.
If their test makes them think its not real they will not buy it.
They may or may not be very skilled in testing gold, they may or may not use good equipment in the test or use the equipment best suited to test, or even calibrated working equipment.
They may or may not be honest with the customer, or may or may not be the best deal in town, many of these places may be honest but pay you nothing for your gold, they figure if you will sell your scrap gold that cheap they will buy it that cheap (not totally honest in my opinion, but that is how much business operates).

The man who tested your gold with the pen may not have known what he was doing, or he could have been trying to rip you off, then again he could have thought you were trying to rip him off.
some of these places just try to buy gold as cheap as they can and sell it as high as they can, trying to pay almost nothing and sell it for as high as possible, they may or may not know the best way to test the gold, or be good at testing, but they have to be good at buying the gold cheap to to make money, some of these place do rip people off by the price they will pay. I suspect He did not know what you had for sell and did not want to take the chance of loosing money on it, he can buy gold all day from someone else that he knows he will make money on.

There is a coin dealer in my town, a very honest man to deal with in buying or selling gold, He uses acids to test with, and is good at it, he could learn to be better in his testing (adding to how he does his tests) but his method serves him well,and his customers well, I cannot sell refined gold to him, he cannot test for it, at that purity, he can judge 22k, but not any higher, so between 18k to 22k (he would by at 18K), between 22K and 24K (he would buy at 22K), unless stamped or marked and was a recognizable coin, bar, or ring with a known authentic assay stamp, and his test proved it as such.
So if I wished to sell my gold to him I would have to take my pure gold and melt it with silver to a karat he can test for, and would buy it at say at 14K or 18K, it is not that he will cheat me it is just how things are when we deal with these valuable metals.

 

[niteliteone]

Here's you a good one :shock:
Solid gold electrical contact points :shock:
Does this person know something I haven't found here :?:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solid-Gold-Contacts-Last-refining-step-needed-999-GOLD-16-GRAMS-Must-Sell-/360819250002?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item540280d352

 

[butcher]

Looks to me he knows how to sell scrap for much more than it is worth, selling silver contacts with a gold coat for the price of solid gold, I wonder how much he sells his gold plated costume jewelry for.

They can have some gold in them but there is no way they are solid gold.

 

[goldenchild]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-sealed-...1AwB5rTqYnXbxZxq3RzpA%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

 

[etack]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-sealed-...1AwB5rTqYnXbxZxq3RzpA%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

hope hes not shipping it by USPS. Thats a lot to ship without charging for the hazmat fee.

Eric

 

[etack]

Looks to me he knows how to sell scrap for much more than it is worth, selling silver contacts with a gold coat for the price of solid gold, I wonder how much he sells his gold plated costume jewelry for.

They can have some gold in them but there is no way they are solid gold.

Step 1 is use out of focus pics so you aren't sure what you are buying.

Eric

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I wonder if she could teach us all how to metabolize our gold with sodium bisulfate? :roll:

Dave

 

[phxdale]

She bumped the price down a little and only says there is 16 grams of 999 gold even though her scale reads 16.43 " to account for the little bit of other metals left in it"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solid-Gold-Contacts-Last-refining-step-needed-999-GOLD-16-GRAMS-Must-Sell-/360823929330?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5402c839f2#ht_110wt_888

But hey, free shipping now. Looks like gravel rocks to me.

 

[macfixer01]

She bumped the price down a little and only says there is 16 grams of 999 gold even though her scale reads 16.43 " to account for the little bit of other metals left in it"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solid-Gold-Contacts-Last-refining-step-needed-999-GOLD-16-GRAMS-Must-Sell-/360823929330?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5402c839f2#ht_110wt_888

But hey, free shipping now. Looks like gravel rocks to me.

Despite the blurry photos it looks like there is more than 1% just in extraneous crap. Pieces of green something (PCB or maybe corroded copper), as well as what looks like some copper relay contact arm scraps and also darker material of some sort?