xrf on 9ct yellow. showed Au,Ag,Pd Rh and many more ????

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davewilson24

Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2009
Messages
19
Location
birmingham uk
hello all, today i was in a jewellers in birmingham uk. while selling gold they used a niton XRF to test some higher carot gold. my question comes from the fact i zapped my wedding ring. my ring is 9ct gold yellow hallmarked. the result from the niton gun was as follows.

9ct yellow gold ring 7.4grams
Ag= 10.73%
Pd= 0.20%
Rh= 0.20%
Ru= 0.07%
Au= 37.02%
Zn= 7.4%
Cu= 44.00%

is this typical trace values accross all gold jewellery?
any help would be fantastic. many thanks dave, uk
 
yer cheers, iv just re-read my posting. I was more intrested in the Pd and Rh. are these metals common accros all jewellery as i handle approx 6-7 kilos per day turnover and it would pay to refine these metals out. thanks
 
Those metals appear on the XRF standards rather than in the jewelry. On average Pt runs between 1 and 1.5 ounces per 1000 ounce karat refining lot. Mostly from prongs that hold stones in the settings. Rh is not even measurable. Usually refiners do not pay on PGM's below the minimum deductions on your quoted rate.

I do know of collectors who add Pt to lots known to have levels of Pt that are not payable, just to get above the deductions. It all depends on the accountability levels payable for low % Pt content.






p
 
XRF guns are a good guide but dont give a true reading i tried some gold plated pieces on one and got similar readings for Pd etc which is obviously laughable as this stuff is made to be as cheap as possible.Most jewellery scrap unless 18 carat white will have just Au Ag as precious metals the balance been Cu and Zn ,the only variance been Pt or 18 carat white heads which you can cut off and save until you have enough to melt and assay for the Pt and Pd content.I cant see the need to refine jewellery scrap as in Birmingham you can get a very high % of the spot price for bars and the extra cost, labour and time will not get you a profit,if you only get British alloys in your 9 carat you will reclaim 700 grams of Ag a day but i doubt you will get half that as so much is imported goods with little or no Ag in the alloys,plus the time factor to recover this which is 2/3 days tying up £100.000 to £150.000 in Au.
 
So clear this one up. Is there trace amounts of all these metal in my wedding ring. Sorry if i seem a little persistant. Cheers all and thanks for the comments sofar.
 
If your wedding ring is yellow gold, no chance
White gold, possibly Pd, but I doubt it. (new nickel concerns in Europe Ni out Pd in)
Unless there's a prong set diamond no Pt
Sometimes cheap diamonds have the setting Rh plated (very little Rh, just a flash)

So if your ring had all of the above, and you melted it into a button, then I'd believe the XRF
 
Im bach in the same shop again tomorrow ill zap another item and see what i get. Ill test a sov coin. The ring is just a yellow plain band. I think ill quiz the guy also. Many thanks
 
Im with 4 metals on this,the trace PGMs show on any metal sampled due i think to the default settings on the XRF gun and if you look at your gold content thats showing a 0.5% deficit which wont be right as it will have been made by one of the big bullion houses who assay their material during production.If you really suspect PGMs have a fire assay done this will be much more accurate, if you want names pm me as im in the quarter and know just about everyone.
 

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