If one wanted to start sending material to the refiner
Skrill90
Posts: 264 ✭✭✭
if one was interested in selling to a refiner how far back of melt should I expect to receive from a refiner? Obviously refiners need to make profit to, so I can't be 100% of melt.
And with that in mind how much back of melt should I be buying material at to make a little profit?
For example these two pieces are a little above melt, Would buying at 90% of melt give me enough room to profit?
0
Comments
It depends on how much money you want to make, and how much your time is worth.
Midwest Refineries, a common go-to smelter on these boards, pays 95% of melt. So if you're sending them $1,000 of scrap, they'll pay you $950. If you're buying at 90%, you'll make a whopping $50 for your $1,000 investment.
But that's before insurance and shipping to you, insurance and shipping to Midwest, supplies, and your time. And any risk you're taking on: The risk that what you're buying is actually gold, that it's actually the correct karat purity you're buying. A single gold plated item or item lower than the karat you've paid for can easily wipe out the rest of your profit. If the item you're buying has stones in them, you'll probably pay their weight in gold and then have that weight deducted by the refiner (who doesn't want stones of any kind).
Paying 75% (or $750 in the above $1,000 value scenario) might make you $125 +/- after the dust settles assuming nothing else goes wrong (which is inevitable if you've never done this before).
Is it worth tying up your money and risking $750 in order to make $125? Can you even find anyone willing to sell you scrap at 75% of its market value? Maybe someone on Craigslist who'll pull a gun on you because they know you'll have hundreds of dollars in cash on you?
https://www.midwestrefineries.com/gold-buyer-broker/
--Severian the Lame
I wouldn't buy now for flipping
I'd bought a lot over the past few years in this trading range and didn't over pay but I got carried away with foreign in a few places . If the universe has decided to give me an exit I may take advantage of it.
To put a point on it , the lot of 40 maria theresa thalers I bought last year isn't frightening me , but that time I got 50 greek 20 drachmas for back of melt I wonder why I did that
At least I dodged that huge pile of 62.5% 5 and 10 mark commemoratives , it was well back of melt but they are ugly stupid looking things yeeesh ,
I almost bought 10 rolls of statue of liberty dollars too good thing I didn't , I actually wouldn't even want one roll today.
I still have 6 rolls of fishie dimes that I bought when silver was 20 a few years ago , its not a lot of money but I'm still annoyed every time I see them
Hard to buy off of ebay to flip to a refiner. Ive personally bought from forum members I trust at 95% of melt, to sell my my work for 99% of melt, after I had refined it to 999. They sell to their refiner for 99.5%. I don't do it often, I tend to just let my gold pile up to a meaningful amount.
Might be best to build a relationship with your local bullion/scrap buyer to get a better rate. Large lots from established clients get checked in, I melt it, assay it, and later that day you get a call with the amount. Last week was slow, I only melted 1850 ozt of gold scrap. Week before was 2800.
Last week was slow, I only melted 1850 ozt of gold scrap. Week before was 2800
I thought gold was rare?
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
$4.2M gold scrap just a drop in the bucket. lol
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
This is an answer to my question to our local Hallmark Refining business by the manager, Dan. Product delivered to their door, no shipping charges.
"Thanks for stopping by last week, I apologize for the delay in my response. I believe I have outlined terms for what we had discussed last week for your coins. Let me know if I can answer any questions.
Treatment charge- $250.00 min
Assay fee- Au,Pt,Pd $200.00
Metals Accountability
1. Au- 95%
2. Pt/Pd- 87%
Settlement- 4 weeks from received date
The refining of this material may be a little different than the coin markets you usually deal in. let me know if I can answer any other questions for you. "
see those PT PD prices ? 87% versus 95% for gold
Do the math everyone
Gold spot 1521 they pay 1451 gee thats low but wait
Palatinum spot 929 they pay 808!!!! so yes Platinum has been trending down for years quick lets buy some after a small pop and lose 13% in one day on something no one wants to buy
Palladium has popped in the last few years is it a good time to pile in and lose $200 an ounce in one day?
I'm not even buying gold and silver right now the idea of buying those other two is insane
@bronco2078 You need to figure the cost of refining PT and PD. Takes ten times the effort gold or silver require. The solutions themselves are much more toxic as well. That and the extreme stress on lab equipment. When I refine, I just dump my waste liquids in a pale to drop all PM's with copper, filter and wash a few times and torch into a puck. I let the well equipped labs handle that stuff.
@Jinx86 why do i see a double eagle in the crucible????
Collector
75 Positive BST transactions buying and selling with 45 members and counting!
instagram.com/klnumismatics
I refuse to look at that because you can't make me buy either, torture me kill me whatever I won't budge I'm saying anyone looking at charts of those two metals wondering when to buy is a turkey , the answer is as always NEVER!
Garbage metals avoid with extreme prejudice , if someone offers you either shoot them with a gun right in the face,
I know a guy who is hoarding TIN! he aint wrapped too tight either, thinks when civilization collapses he will be sitting on a fortune I repeat....... he chose TIN
Platinum and paladium are just as useless as a hoard of tin only you go broke so much more efficiently. I mean why go broke over a period of years with tin when you can do it in MINUTES
and it takes up less space whooopee
If I was you I would lower my buy price to 43.5% on both metals to make the person offering it so angry they storm off in a rage.
So Hallmark Refining is a reverse hard money lender?...
When they only sell for 99% of melt wholesale what is the point of not melting them.
To go along with what Jinx is saying, I saw my local dealer today, out and about, and we chatted. He said he has been sending $20 gold pieces to the refiner as well. Said that, if I want to stop in, he would sell me, my choice, either NGC/PCGS MS63 St Gaudens for spot. MS64 would be ~$50ish higher.
I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment
Im not a fan of either metal, just trying to defend the refiners cost of doing business. However, if you think the spread sucks in PD and PT, try buying/selling Rh. It was fun when Rh ran up to $10,000 back in 2011. Wish I had stockpiled more from scrapping back then, was still mostly new the the process.
its good that the spread sucks , it discourages people from buying the garbage. If you are a trader trade paper the spreads are much lower
Am I the only one that thinks it's crazy to take double eagles with known weight and fineness of gold guaranteed by the U S Government and then do a lot of work destroying them to create lumps of yellow metal that no one wants except perhaps a refinery at a discount to melt value to cover their costs to assay and refine it? I can't believe that double eagles aren't far more liquid and marketable in the marketplace than lumps of yellow metal from an unknown private individual.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I don't believe you are alone @PerryHall
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
That is my thought also... makes no sense to me.
"When they only sell for 99% of melt wholesale what is the point of not melting them"
jinx86, as with my previous post regarding the melting of double eagles... it makes no sense to me. Since you sell your refined product for 99% melt... why go through the time, expense, effort if you could just sell the $20 gold for 99% by itself? Perhaps you are doing it to obtain larger amounts of your refined product? I'm not being critical of your methodology... just puzzled on how the bottom line economics work out to your advantage....
We receive 99.5% of melt on scrap bars.
Also, anything worth saving, we save. There are the rare occurrences that we get really amazing items it. If you truly knew how many $20's are flooded on the market you would encourage the melting.
When an economy is over-employed, we do work for the sake of doing work.
Melting these is dumb.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
melting? noooooooooo.......
Few have any idea how large the quantity of scrap really is.
I 100% agree that these coins shouldn’t me melted. It’s destroying their history and beauty into a ugly bar. If they want to melt them down for 99% of spot, I’ll buy them for 99% of spot.........
Collector
75 Positive BST transactions buying and selling with 45 members and counting!
instagram.com/klnumismatics
I hear Jinx creates about 250 tonnes alone.
I can certainly understand melting culls (holed, damaged, harshly cleaned, etc) but melting damage free double eagles just seems plain wrong to me.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
do you melt 90% silver, too?
Great point but alas they don’t know, add all other gold and silver that goes to melter and they would all pass out...
Even with the enormous refining volume now, if a MAJOR rise is in the mix, no one can keep up.
This has happened before.
Deliveries delayed weeks.
Backup causes low scrap price unless the seller is willing to wait and take a chance on future price at time of melt.
Few can hedge with contracts to compensate.
99.5% of melt, if i sold at spot I would be ripping you off.
Only if its culled out, damaged, holed, plugged, or slick. Although there is little premium to 90% anymore.
Jinx,
How much time does it take to refine 2800 oz of scrap to .999, I don't know anything about refining but that just sounds like a lot of work.
They melt them into bars, then someone buys the bars and turns it into pretty proof novelty coins and sells them to folks who sell them to greater fools, who put them into little plastic cases and sell them to even greater fools.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
They aren't fools if they buy back of melt far enough
Here is a link to a huge source of info for anyone wanting to learn PM refining. Take baby steps though, safety is key, no amount of money is worth risking your health or life. Aski questions, but only after you have read and understand the basics.
https://goldrefiningforum.com
I dont handle much for refining, other than processing small amounts of gold/silver for stone extractions, around 30ozt or so. If I were to want to process that volume to pure in my facility I would have to retool my lab and add about $75,000 in equipment. Below is the the style of refining plant I would be looking to add, a few changes, but similar. This would be able to process around 10 KG a day of gold. So you could about image the size and complexity of refining plants the big guys have.
As a stable genius once said, "I thought gold was rare?" lol
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
What's it take to get 4 9s?
I think electrolysis
Collector
75 Positive BST transactions buying and selling with 45 members and counting!
instagram.com/klnumismatics
It's kind of funny...but.............a lot of those components look like equipment in my materials lab [asphalt,soils,concrete]
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
If you inquart the gold with silver, dissolve the silver with nitric, your left with generally pure gold, 97-98 depending on your filtering and washing cycles. If I wanted further I would dissolve the gold in aqua regia and filter a few times making sure to drop the lead and silver from the solution. Once the auric acid is very clean drop the gold with SMB, a series of wash cycles. Dissolve again in aqua regia, wash cycles. Dry. Melt. IF you did everything right 9999 gold will be the result. Now remember there is no real reason to refine to 999, unless you are selling to the public as "bullion", tax exempt. The main reason to refine for yourself is to catch the silver platinum and palladium in your wastes that most refiners don't pay for. It's costly, time consuming, and potentially dangerous. But it kinda fun....as a hobby.
@Jinx86 if you have a moment, can you provide an update on the state of melting these days? I’m assuming it’s slowed and customers have been pciking up your pre-1933 Libs? Or is it continuing?
Appreciate any update.
He who knows he has enough is rich.
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Still a lot getting melted, market is oversaturated with cleaned and crap $20's (at least thats what My refiner said last week)
Melting of xf-au material has stopped. However anything cleaned and damaged is subject to potential melting depending on that buyers at that moment.
Love that answer. Glad the decent stuff is surviving and the problem stuff is going away!
Thanks for answering!
He who knows he has enough is rich.