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Why Not Pure Silver???
Onastone
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Our silver coins, at best, are .999 silver with what, .001 copper? Does that copper really stop marring? Why wouldn't a pure silver coin be made? Is .999 the best we can do? Maybe a pure silver coin is just too difficult to reach. Is there a .9999 silver?
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My guess is that cost of refining to that level is cost prohibitive (even with the current mark-ups).
Probably the same reason Ivory Soap is 99.44% pure. 100% is probably impossible. However I believe they can keep purifying it more and stretching out those 9's. Like .99999%.
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Do you have any clue what extra processing is required to improve purity from 0.999 to 0.9999?
In the auto catalyst business we used to buy platinum, palladium, and rhodium at the "5 nines" level because it was the most economical choice - by a large margin. Translated, that means 99.999% pure. More expensive for sure, but the bean counters wanted us to account for every single atom even thought there was no available technology to do so.
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Some bullion claims to be .9999. I think .999 is close enough.
Why is the location of the decimal point different for Ivory soap vs. silver and gold? Isn't 99.9% technically 100X more pure than .999%?
Even pure love is only 99 and 44/100% pure. Ronnie Milsap says so.
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Always leave yourself some room for error
Are you implying that the copper was added? The coins were never intended to circulate so why would they mar? They aren't handled in bulk bins like common coinage intended for circulation is.
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I think the Royal Canadian Mint makes .9999 bullion.
I assume that since silver does not come out of the ground in a pure form, the best they can do is promise .999. There is also the legal aspect - claiming 100% pure would leave them open to lawsuits.
I believe it is a question of refining....and whether it is even feasible to achieve 100% purity.... Cheers, RickO
I don't think that .999 fine is .999%, I think .999 fine = 99.9% ?
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Technically, silver is a metallic chemical element whose chemical symbol is Ag (Argentum) and whose atomic number is 47. It is a precious metal that is used to make jewelry, tableware (silverware), and coins, among other things. It also has many other uses which we will discuss in future posts.
The millesimal fineness system is used to show the purity of silver, gold, and platinum alloys by parts per thousand of pure metal by mass in the alloy. For example, if an alloy contains 92.5% silver, it is referred to as “925.” [NOTE: An alloy is a mixture of two or more metals to obtain desirable qualities such as hardness, lightness, and strength.]
Fine silver (99.9% pure) is too soft to use in jewelry or almost anything else because it bends, breaks, and stretches too much. For this reason, manufacturing jewelers and silversmiths mix copper with it to give it some strength without discoloring it. Copper is the industry standard. However, some countries use other alloys as well.
When you see “.999 fine silver” or “999” stamped on an item, it is considered pure silver. It is softer and more malleable than sterling silver. It is used in bullion bars, and is also known as three nines fine.
https://www.goldenstatemint.com/the-difference-between-pure-silver-sterling-silver-coin-silver-junk-silver-and-silver-plating.html
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I can't find it now, but I read somewhere that the Federal standards for 1.000 fine silver were so high that the refining industry never tried to hit it. Everybody uses 0.999 and everybody is happy with that.
You do see European medals marked 1.000 on the edge. Would they test out as absolutely perfect? I don't know, but I doubt that anybody loses sleep over it.
I suspect that in reality most "0.999" silver is actually somewhere between 0.999 and 0.9999, such as 0.9994 or 0.9997, but unless you are making it for NASA it just doesn't matter!
There are some examples of 1.000 fine silver items here:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1035591/japanese-canadian-beaver-postage-stamp-ingots#latest
When making semiconductors, we used Silicon, single crystal, of ultra-high-purity “99.999999999%”
Yes, it does make a difference.
Cost and lawsuits are major factors.
For example, a 1000 ounce bar, .999 could have 1 ounce of other, in it. Go to .9999, and it is a 1/10 of an ounce. Call silver at $20 an ounce, or whatever, are you "losing" $20 on the deal because it is not "pure". No, because that is already factored in the prices, since it is .999. Sell .999 that is .9991, roses and peaches. Sell .999 that is .9989, lawsuits over a few cents of silver.
But if you want ,9999, that is fine. For that 1000 ounce bar, it will cost you another $60 to refine, so you don't "lose" your 1 ounce (actually 9/10's of an ounce) of silver. Maybe you are the .99999 crowd. That will run you an extra $230 to get an extra $2 of silver.
In the age of the counterfeit everycoin, I still believe there is a place for a master set of silver, gold, and copper standards based on date / mint / history. For example, silver mined in Nevada in 1882, alloyed 90/10, might have 7 parts per billion of praseodymium, 2 parts per billion of scandium, 1 ppb of lutetium but no dysprosium whereas 1882 Philadelphia always had 3 - 5 PPB of dysprosium. 1964 quarters from Denver never had any scandium but always showed 3 - 6 ppb of gadolinium.
By analysing enough, or even focusing on the critical few, it could be a tool to validate authenticity. For example, all 1893-S silver dollars had no gadolinium, so if one shows up with 4 ppb of gadolinium, it was probably made from melted down early 1960's denver coins.
It would be nice to have the chemical fingerprints of the 100 most common silvers coming out of China, for example.
, "Nothing is Perfect" but .999 is close to it.
Good question!
I've always wondered that myself. 🤔🤔
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--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.Do you have a reference for the trace elements? I've always been curious about them. Is that a bulk assay or a surface XRF?
It is Measurement Theory 101.
You will love this:
99.99% pure is technically 100% pure (to 3 measured digits) In fact 99% pure is actually 100% pure to 1 measured digit! 99.99% pure implies that you measured all 4 digits. 99.999% pure would imply that you measured all 5 digits.
Okay, you probably didn't love that. My students hate it also. Laymen have a tendency to think of numbers as being exact but they are only really exact if you count. 12 eggs is exactly 12 eggs. 1 pound of meat is never exactly 1 pound. In fact 1 pound of meat could actually be 10% light and still be considered 1 pound of meat. It is a question of tolerance.
It becomes increasingly more expensive to refine to higher and higher accuracy. Look at the premium for a "5 nines" Canada gold coin versus a "4 nines".
There is never EXACTLY 100% pure anything to an infinite number of measure digits. One molecule of carbon dust would make it 99.999999999999999999999% pure and not EXACTLY 100%.
Dr. Bentz, my freshman chem Professor would be in total agreement
This is really interesting. One question that immediately comes to mind: didn't the various mint locations used to act as assaying/refining offices where the public could sell their metals? If that's the case, there could be widely mixed compositions if the source of silver (or even a small component, given the percentages you're discussing) was whatever came in, rather than knowing that in 1885, all silver at Denver came from a certain set of mines. Even if we did know that all the metal came from a given set of mines, if their silver composition varied, then each batch of silver alloyed over the year could change. Granted, none of this discounts your idea that if silver coming out of China today has well-known signatures that are nothing like the likely compositions of our old mints, you could use that information to cast great suspicion on certain pieces.
Yes, various "batches" changed over time. For example, when the money that was ultimately used to fund the Smithsonian Museum came to the United States, it was in English Gold coins. 1836 President Jackson sent Richard Rush, former Treasury Secretary, to England as Commissioner to proceed in Chancery Court to secure the funds. In 1838 he was successful and returned, accompanied by 104,960 gold sovereigns (in eleven crates) and Smithson's personal items, scientific notes, minerals, and library. The gold was transferred to the treasury in Philadelphia and was reminted into $508,318.46.
Not sure about gold and the .46, but those coins would have had a signature, and gold minted from Philadelphia in 1838 would have had a unique signature of English Gold, as opposed to Gold from the Carolinas.
The more it is mixed, the more "special" it becomes. For example, take a silver from one area that always has trace metal X, but never Y, and other silver from a different area that has trace element Z but not A. Put them together, and you have X and Z, in a ratio that does not exist normally, so that melt is unique. Say a load of 4 tons from the Comstock mines, and 2 tons from Southern Mexico Pesos is melted. Using a TXRF type analysis, For example, making up an example, it shows up on coins from Denver from 1915 - 1916, so a 1916-D dime WITHOUT that signature, but a signature of silver from Wuhan China is a no go.
We have people who collect by die marriages. That, and the Smithsonian, would be a great place to start the matrix.
I'm really liking the science in this thread. I bet @TomB would, too.
Wow. I'm glad I asked that question, I used to just take silver for granted...it's really fascinating to expand on silver, where it's sourced, and from when...all very good points. Mineral signatures....sort of the DNA of our coins!
I wonder if radioactivity might be another thing to check out. For example, there is a material called low background steel that is used in VERY sensitive medical work. This is because all modern steel has too high of a radiation background due to the open air testing, radioactive cobalt getting in the scrap stream, etc.
The biggest source of low background steel is raising old sunken ships, prior to WW2 atomic air bursts. There were a bunch of WW1 German ships scuttled in Scapa Flow after WW1, and those ships have been mined for low background steel. I wonder if anyone has checked modern silver versus old silver for radiation background.
I wish that the vast range of western ingots attributed to or otherwise connected to John J. Ford was all available to be tested with this type of precision. Alas, approximately 700 ounces of miscellaneous ingots in his estate disappeared into the melting pot lest the controversy over them detract from the vastly larger rest of the collection.
I don't know about bars, but it doesn't work that way for US gold bullion coins. Those are required by law to contain the full weight of gold stated on the coin.
I don't think bars would be regulated beyond ensuring there is no fraud. I've always assumed they contained their stated purity multiplied by their weight in precious metal.
As for gold coins, they contain the full listed weight of precious metal. The 1oz Gold Eagle weighs just over 1oz because it's marked 1oz fine gold, but the gold isn't 100% pure. Since it's 22kt, making it 22/24 gold, the coin has to weigh 24/22oz, or 1.0909oz. On the other hand, the Buffalo is .9999 pure, and it weighs in at 1.0001oz (1/.9999).
The incorporation of radiation in the steel comes from the way air is used in the production of steel. The radiation is in the air not the iron. Would the same thing apply to the silver which is not refined in the same way as the iron?
1 mole of silver weighs 107.8682 grams and contains 6.02214076×10^23 atoms.
Completely ignoring decimal accuracy etc. one troy ounce is 6.02214076e23 atoms.
That means your 0.999 fine silver contains 1.7362724e20 atoms of something else.
Your 0.9999 fine silver contains 1.7362724e19
The difference is 1.5626452e+20 atoms or
156,264,520,000,000,000,000 atoms
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Always fun to see a mole somewhere besides chemistry.
But slight correction, one troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, so one troy ounce is 0.288347 moles or 1.736468x10^23 atoms. I think you just put the wrong number in the second sentence as the rest of the calculation is correct.
Once again, Dr. Bentz, my freshman chemistry professor would be proud of both of you. Except @BStrauss3 would not receive full credit because of his typo. But he did show all his work (amazing what you remember after 35+ years)
I would imagine that the "1000 ounce bar" actually weighs 1001 ounces of 0.999 silver, for a total of 1000 ounces of pure silver.
The example from @mustangmanbob is not hypothetical.
As mentioned, Canada produces .9999 fine bullion now. They used to produce .999 bullion. If someone buys 1000 four-nines gold Maple Leafs (some people DO buy gold in those quantities) and they get 1000 three-nines Maple Leafs instead, that's something like a $1500 difference in value.
Yes, it's called a Silver Canadian Maple Leaf.
Legally, .999 fine is considered pure. (This is from working at an ISO9001 licensed mint).
Anything marked above 3-9's is a marketing ploy. The ASE isn't even marked as .999 fine.
Not necessarily. A 0.9999 coin containing 1 ounce of gold has exactly as much gold as a 0.999 coin contain 1 ounce of gold. Heck, 0.9167 gold eagles have the exact same amount of gold as 0.9999 Buffaloes.
Don't confuse the coin weight with the gold weight. A 0.9167 gold eagle weighs 33.931 g which gives it a net gold weight of 31.105 g (one troy ounce).
The real question is what the weight tolerance is on the coins. In fact, the weight I see quoted for Maple leafs is 31.11 g which means that they are only expressing the mass to 1.000 troy ounces so you would not see a difference between 0.999 and 0.9999 because that would only show up in the 4 decimal place. If the weight is 31.11 +/- 0.01, then you are as likely to get a coin that is slightly overweight as you are to get a coin that is slightly underweight.
This looks like a good place to interject a plug for the "Curse of Oak Island". They determined where the lead stuff they found came from using something along these lines.
A 0.9999 coin containing 1 ounce of gold has exactly as much gold as a 0.999 coin contain 1 ounce of gold. Heck, 0.9167 gold eagles have the exact same amount of gold as 0.9999 Buffaloes.
I'm confused. Maybe because I don't know what weight tolerance is. I don't mind the thread has leaned from silver to gold...it's all fascinating.
I looked at the stats from the mint on the AGE and as they call it a one oz gold proof (struck in 22 karat gold) it's composition is 91.67% gold, 3% silver, and balance copper with a total weight of 1.0909 troy oz. With weight leaning over 1 oz, does that make it actually 1 oz of gold? The gold Buffalo one oz (struck in 24 karat gold) contains 1 oz of .9999 fine gold...composition 99.99 gold with a weight of 1.0000 troy oz. That's like the gold Maple right?
I definitely am confusing coin weight with gold weight.
The stats from the mint on the ASE states 1 troy oz of silver, composition 99.9 silver, with a weight of 1.000 troy oz. Is coin weight on silver different than silver weight as well?
What's heavier? A pound of feathers or a pound of gold?
Beware of printed numbers that have been rounded off.
The weight tolerance is actually two numbers. It's a value and a percentage.
Let's say we are talking 100g +/- 0.01g at 95%.
The first is the usually quoted tolerance - 100g +/- 0.01g means it will be between 100 - 0.01g and 100 + 0.01g or 99.99g and 100.01g
The 95% is critical, but often not disclosed. It says that the tolerance is correct 95% of the time. So oversimplifying, if you have 100 bars at 100g each, there could be 5 that are heavy or light (above 100.01 or below 99.99).
If you want to dig into this, look for standard deviation, normal distribution, etc.
One of the effects you can see is when you buy bottle water the grocery store. They used to fill the bottles so they averaged 1 liter +/- the tolerance. But they got sued because those 2 or 3 bottles were underfilled. So they overfill to ensure they don't go under (nobody ever said, hey, I got 1.02L so here's an extra dime I owe you).
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@BStrauss The same example was used in my statistics class in college, only it was soda pop.
Sometimes I feel like I'm in a classroom here!
Wait were you the teacher? I left my notes at home...