The refiners I helped get established were not scrap buyers they were chemical refiners. All lots came in from buyers of scrap and they were all processed in acid and all of the stones cleaned and returned to the client. Rarely were any stones removed so either the gemstones were, as an old acquaintance from the diamond industry called them, aquarium gravel, so they were worthless. But this is from a refiners perspective not a gemstone dealer.
One thing some refiners who buy in the goods do is set up a website or sell on eBay as finished goods. Considering the metals value is less than the finished piece value there is a decent mark-up. The thing is they sit on a substantial value in inventory until it sells.
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If I were setting up to maximize income, all of the larger stones, including diamonds would be mechanically cut free of the settings. Big stones and prong set diamonds are easy to snip out and you won't be getting it in as large lots which makes this impractical for a commercial refiner. All of the pavé set stones and channel sets which are easily damaged removing would be trimmed of the shanks and processed in aqua regia to recover the diamonds. The shanks are melted into the lots of karat scrap being shipped directly out for refining. This minimizes the number of diamonds actually requiring chemical refining and gets you paid for a good portion of the gold quicker.
One thing a lot of buyers do with cheaper goods is ship them to a refiner to melt and settle with cheap stones being part of the melt. This is foolish because melt losses can be justifiably high because of the non gold particles in addition to a natural melt loss are best performed in your own furnace so you can verify the melt loss results and ship a clean bar. You will have a melt loss from the refiner when he re-melts your bar but the gold content should not vary because only volatile non precious metals burn off and all of the cheap stones were burnt under your control so there is no worry.
So to summarize, melt and sample in house and ship bars which you have an XRF result for, and remove all larger stones for possible re-sale and accumulate goods with valuable stones (only the heads with stones, shanks cut off) and if you accumulate enough for stone removal, you can set up to do it later. There are many smaller shops that can handle this type of processing for you.
A lot of smaller refiners here on the forum can handle this for you and if you take back the gold from the refine you can ship it with your gold melts and get better rates on both ends. If you were to save up enough ring heads to make up a 10 ounce lot (probably 20-25 oz of goods before cutting the shanks) The gold yield will be in the 4.5-5 ounce range. Typically a refiner will charge $250 for a stone removal plus anywhere from 1-3% of the recovered gold. For a 10 ounce lot that translates to about 4.5 grams of gold the refiner keeps (at $90 a gram that's about $400 plus the lot fee $250.). So now you have an idea what to look out for in the future.
One thing some refiners who buy in the goods do is set up a website or sell on eBay as finished goods. Considering the metals value is less than the finished piece value there is a decent mark-up. The thing is they sit on a substantial value in inventory until it sells.
.
If I were setting up to maximize income, all of the larger stones, including diamonds would be mechanically cut free of the settings. Big stones and prong set diamonds are easy to snip out and you won't be getting it in as large lots which makes this impractical for a commercial refiner. All of the pavé set stones and channel sets which are easily damaged removing would be trimmed of the shanks and processed in aqua regia to recover the diamonds. The shanks are melted into the lots of karat scrap being shipped directly out for refining. This minimizes the number of diamonds actually requiring chemical refining and gets you paid for a good portion of the gold quicker.
One thing a lot of buyers do with cheaper goods is ship them to a refiner to melt and settle with cheap stones being part of the melt. This is foolish because melt losses can be justifiably high because of the non gold particles in addition to a natural melt loss are best performed in your own furnace so you can verify the melt loss results and ship a clean bar. You will have a melt loss from the refiner when he re-melts your bar but the gold content should not vary because only volatile non precious metals burn off and all of the cheap stones were burnt under your control so there is no worry.
So to summarize, melt and sample in house and ship bars which you have an XRF result for, and remove all larger stones for possible re-sale and accumulate goods with valuable stones (only the heads with stones, shanks cut off) and if you accumulate enough for stone removal, you can set up to do it later. There are many smaller shops that can handle this type of processing for you.
A lot of smaller refiners here on the forum can handle this for you and if you take back the gold from the refine you can ship it with your gold melts and get better rates on both ends. If you were to save up enough ring heads to make up a 10 ounce lot (probably 20-25 oz of goods before cutting the shanks) The gold yield will be in the 4.5-5 ounce range. Typically a refiner will charge $250 for a stone removal plus anywhere from 1-3% of the recovered gold. For a 10 ounce lot that translates to about 4.5 grams of gold the refiner keeps (at $90 a gram that's about $400 plus the lot fee $250.). So now you have an idea what to look out for in the future.
