***** The Platinumill Exposed and on Trial *****

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Harold i didn't say i knew any dam thing about any of that. I think you need your meds Or need to get some sleep. Oh and how's my sales. A lot better than that one picture you seem so proud of that bowl of gold . Really is that the proudest moment you have got. well either that or one of your book commercials.

Wisdom you may have, Patience and teaching skills ??????
 
I went to a refiner that had a quote on the door saying "Honesty is the best policy".
Click to expand...

In retrospect maybe that would have been the first sign to get the heck out of there! I joke but whenever someone trys to put on a show about how honest they are, especially if they're a used car salesman, politician, pm refiner - it's usually a bad sign.
 
Aflac, what's with the atacks? You trying to run him off?

Like he has said, what does he have to gain by any of this?

And as for patience and teaching skills.......seems to me Harold is being very patient, and I can't see why you would question his teaching skills.
Looks like he does a fine job of coveying his thoughts and such to me.
If you don't agree with something he has to say, well, thats one thing.....
but, to fight about seems pointless to me.
Randy
 
When Harold says something isn't likely to work, I am likely to listen as he has been there and done it. 70 oz. of platinum sponge is no small amount of experience, and what he says is in line with my personal experience dealing with JM. My personal belief is that platinum is worth more in a fabricated state--crucibles, wire, plates, electrodes and that can be sold to the right client: the scientist, who is used to paying an exorbitant amount of money for platinumware. Can I melt platinum? Yes I can melt it into nice buttons, but I can not do more than 5 t. oz. at a time. Casting it is extremely difficult to do because it has a narrow range of liquidus. To do it right, you do need induction. As Harold mentioned, unless you have 3 phase (which units as small as 15kW sometimes use) or access to it, doing anything big with induction requires an industrial power supply. Bear in mind that induction only heats conductive materials, so your converter material will at best get warm from the PGM content in it.

This is the mindset of a large refinery:

http://www.wc-heraeus.com/wch2/dach/e_wch_home.nsf/$frameset/startneu
 
Gold you can refine fairly easily and sell to a number of consumers. PGM's are a different story. Unless you are making catalysts for synthesis work or plating solutions, there's really not much of a market to sell PGM's outside of the major refiners. People like Midwest are just middlemen who make their profit off of accumulating small lots and reselling to the big refiners. If you don't like what they pay, tough, because that's the way the PGM refining system works.
 
Hey guys, what do you think about "Specialty Metals"?
This is how they pay..Minimum Lot: 500 catalytic converters or 1000 pounds of loose catalyst.



Payable Metals:

90% of Platinum recovered

90% of Palladium recovered

75% of Rhodium recovered



Treatment Charge: None
Assay Charge: None
Lot Fee: None
If this is true.......it would be hard to beat.
Now if there was just some way say 5 of us could combine our cats to make thier minimum............?
Randy
 
I would want an independent assay on the converter material for obvious reasons. Also, their price on rhodium is not the best, I know of one place that pays 88-90% of rhodium spot price plus assay charge ($270).

Their price on Pt and Pd is very good though.
 
I wouldn't want much. Just an independent ICP assay , a witness to watch the entire process, a group of highly competent lawyers with backgrounds in refining industry cases, an army of security guards from Blackwater (bonus for any with itchy trigger fingers and suspect psychological profiles), and a possible congressional inquiry.

A couple of military drones with hellfire missles circling the refinery too.

Hee hee :)
 
daveerf said:
Ah, Harold, I reread my post and figured someone would not take it like I was trying to say because I didn't explain it in more detail. There was a total of 1700 oz. of material. The assay was for 1003 oz. of silver contained therein....
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Wow! Now I understand your position better. This should serve as notice to those that hope to sell metals to major refiners, or merchants of precious metals.

What you experienced was parallel to my experience when I sold my platinum. I was offered a low ball settlement of 70% content, less fees. This from a name you see regularly, here on this board. I demanded return of my material.

Second entity assayed a sample, which I prepared properly, and was told it was 90% pure. I knew the quality was low because the platinum had been recovered from very dirty solutions. I did nothing to improve quality because of circumstances at the time-----I didn't have time to re-refine it because I was working long hard days trying to keep up on refining for my customers.

I submitted the platinum, then when settlement time came, I was paid as if it was 80% pure, less handling. I clearly got screwed, but was not in the position to do anything about it. There was no doubt in my mind that the material submitted exceeded 90% purity.

Funny-------irons made mention that the platinum metal proposition is much like a cartel. Those are my exact thoughts. It is highly unlikely these people are going to allow anyone to upset their carts. They couldn't do much with those that refined gold after legislation made it legal to refine without a federal license, but platinum processing and fabrication is well beyond the ability of almost everyone aside from those with equipment and proper connections. As important as the equipment is, the proper connections are far more important, and that is what will prevent anyone from getting rich. Regardless of your ability, you can't market the material aside from selling to the major refiners.

Use good sense, guys. I'm not suggesting you don't mess with converters----just don't mortgage your house so you can use the money to refine. Let it grow slowly, and hope to find a buyer that will treat you honestly.

I'm of the opinion that those that are successful in extracting the values will enjoy considerable success if they can penetrate Johnson-Matthey. While I had no success in doing so, the feeling I got from them was that they may treat you fairly once you had established yourself with them.

I wish everyone luck! I am supportive of your efforts, but I'd like to see each and every person here use good sense and not get extended to the point where you risk losing your assets. Keep this thing fun----and hope for the best.

Harold
 
aflacglobal said:
Harold i didn't say i knew any dam thing about any of that. I think you need your meds Or need to get some sleep. Oh and how's my sales. A lot better than that one picture you seem so proud of that bowl of gold . Really is that the proudest moment you have got. well either that or one of your book commercials.

Wisdom you may have, Patience and teaching skills ??????
Click to expand...


Your verbal attacks on readers is not acceptable.

You have the manners of a starving hog and contribute little to the betterment of the forum. I see nothing good coming from your presence here.

Harold
 
Harold,
I agree that nobody should jump in feet first and bet the farm.
What I am doing is simply a feasability study.
I haven't figured on making money on this study or, even getting part of my money back.
What I want is the information.
If by chance I am able to pull some pgm's out of the catylist with this method, then I'll focus on trying to sell the material at a fair price.
Only after all of this can be established, will I move forward with any future investment in this process.
If it doesn't work... then at least I'll know what not to do and I'll have the info I paid for.

Mark
 
From what I gather, a few small time guys send their pgm's to other countries, Belgium,Germany, and one guy I spoke with sends his to sweden and his funds are put into "one of those accounts",,shhh..
 
Here's an excerpt from the prestigious International Precious Metals Institute conference in 2002:

Theft by some precious metal refiners is, unfortunately, a fact of life, widely reported in general and industry journals (e.g. American Metal Market). One example which is illustrative of the extent to which theft can extend is provided by the case of RFE Industries, Inc., a New Jersey company. A United States grand jury was empanelled in Newark, New Jersey on January 26, 1996, specifically to examine evidence of possible criminal theft and fraud by RFE, and that examination resulted three years later in a guilty plea to a twenty-page list of charges.


RFE, and its owner and president, pleaded guilty to a systematic, corporate program to steal from customers:


“executives and sales personnel would regularly confer and determine the amount by which they could safely defraud given customers without alarming them.” (U.S. v. Jack Leiner, Criminal No. 99-320, USDC, District of New Jersey, Information, Count 1, para. 24a)

Now my text starts below:

They did things like under report weights, change the numbers on assays and get this one...would open SEALED containers, remove precious metal bearing material and replace with the same weight in ASH!

This is not an isolated case, and I quote the IPMI above saying "widely reported in general and industial journals", if you peruse several judicial documents you will find many, many more cases. I myself was a victim many times and that alone got me to abandon the precious metal market years ago, specifically in dealing with refining companies. I also know of many people in my life that have experienced this too.
If you noticed GSP's statement where he characterized precious metal refining companies with the quote "You can shear a sheep many times , but you can only skin him once" is a perfect example of this industry.
As Lou stated and I reiterated, get an ICP assay by an independent company and pay to have a professional witness to watch your material being refined.

Now if you need more stories from my experience, I'd be happy to let you know but seeing the well respected IPMI state that should be powerful enough to make you take as many precautions as possible.
 
Harold_V said:
aflacglobal said:
Harold i didn't say i knew any dam thing about any of that. I think you need your meds Or need to get some sleep. Oh and how's my sales. A lot better than that one picture you seem so proud of that bowl of gold . Really is that the proudest moment you have got. well either that or one of your book commercials.

Wisdom you may have, Patience and teaching skills ??????
Click to expand...


Your verbal attacks on readers is not acceptable.

You have the manners of a starving hog and contribute little to the betterment of the forum. I see nothing good coming from your presence here.

Harold
Click to expand...

Yeah yeah yeah. O mighty one. Won't this to stop, then quit coming at me.

Act like a fool, get treated like one. I can't see where you are all that impressive either.
 
Amen Dave!! Well put.


I think we need to make a thread called "Let's not get scammed, and how to avoid getting sheared".

Problem is, most of us small timers don't have the time or resources to fork over for an independent ICP, XRF, or AA analysis for the small lots we deal with on a regular basis.

Case example, I sent in about an ounce of what I knew to be pure 99.99% pure Pt (I had ran my own analytical tests) to Midwest Refineries only to be told some hogwash about how they'll XRF it and figure out if it's platinum, and how pure it is to +/-3% (they're really more accurate than that, generally +/- 1% but it can be better depending who's using it and how). Of course they'll take the value the machine gives and correct DOWN by 3% :) In my case, since I sent in less than 3 troy ounces, they decided that they would settle for 95% of spot price multiplied by their 89% payout. I never knew I had to send in more than 3 troy ounces to be eligible for the 89% payout. To top it off, they told me it wasn't pure, when I knew it was. Anyway, by the time they were all said and done with their shenanigans, their 89% payout for "any amount" was down to 79% of spot price. Geez guys, at least put some fine print on your website!!

Oh, and when I called to ask why I was 100 bucks short, I got the "well, some of the metal vaporized when it was melted" which is a steaming shovel full of poo. I played along. I had half a mind to tell him that it's not my fault they don't know how to melt platinum, and more than half a mind to ask them how in the world they can make a noticeable amount of platinum volatilize at its casting point. The probably melted it in an induction furnace (which I assume they could afford, if they even have an XRF like they claim)...so unless they *grossly* overheated it, loss due to evaporation should have been nil.

Conclusion: Never, ever believe the "some of it evaporated" line. It's utter crap when applied to platinum, which is used in lab equipment up to its melting point because it doesn't gain or lose weight!!! It's not really that true for gold, palladium, or silver either. You can look up their vapour pressures yourself!
Conclusion: Their assay is probably biased.

I'm no where near an expert on refining, but I do have a wee bit of what I consider practical experience with the machines used for analysis, and just a little bit of chemistry under my belt. So being treated like a complete idiot was not only insulting, but rather amusing. They didn't fool me, and I'll not allow them to try ever again.
 
So, most refineries buy it on their own terms and according to their own analysis.
Kinda sounds like that cartel thing again.
I have looked into alot of companies that claim they buy this and that, only to find after conversing with them , on the phone or by email, that most aren't interested in what the little guy has.
Maybe if we formed our own cartel with enough product to turn heads we could get fair market value.
Of course, I don't have any product yet so, this may be a little premature for most of us.

Mark
 
I'm begging please stop the infighting. Before someone gets out a trevushay :oops: edit trebuchet
 
If you produce gold sponge by the solvent extraction/liquid liquid separation method I will buy the sponge @95% of spot, three-day turnaround FOB my location.

It must be washed with 12% HCl solution and rinsed appropriatley to remove residuals.

Up to 400 ounces a week.

CC
 

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