PLumb gold, melt loss, and related gold-buying/refining issues
refinerychic
Posts: 32
There were so many great questions posted on my last posting about refining that I wanted to start a whole new post dedicated to some of these :
1) The question was posed about why Italian gold is plumb (full karat) gold: actually German and Italian gold jewelry are plumb because it is the law in these 2 countries that the gold be full karat, and jewelers obey for the most part. What is interesting is that Italian and German jewelers will typically over-karat the piece itself to compensate for the lower karat metal used in the links, rings, springs and fasteners because the law states that the ENTIRE piece must come out as plumb, so for a necklace, for example, if 8 karat is used for the fasteners (a lower karat is sturdier and less malleable) and some steel is in the spring, the jeweler will over-karat the chain itself so that the piece can average out plumb.
2) Another member posted about experiencing melt loss at a refinery. I want to define some reasonable expectations of melt loss. If you have cleaned your scrap up, i.e. removed non-precious metal-bearing clasps and removed stones, I would expect your melt loss to be from 0.5% to 1.5%. If you have not cleaned it up at all then 3% would be typical, possibly higher if you had large stones in the jewelry.
thanks for all the interesting comments on my last posting, and thanks for welcoming me to the network. I hope to be able to keep you informed on relevant refining and metal - purchasing topics. Please let me know if there are any topics or questions you would like me to look into....
Best Wishes,
Mira
1) The question was posed about why Italian gold is plumb (full karat) gold: actually German and Italian gold jewelry are plumb because it is the law in these 2 countries that the gold be full karat, and jewelers obey for the most part. What is interesting is that Italian and German jewelers will typically over-karat the piece itself to compensate for the lower karat metal used in the links, rings, springs and fasteners because the law states that the ENTIRE piece must come out as plumb, so for a necklace, for example, if 8 karat is used for the fasteners (a lower karat is sturdier and less malleable) and some steel is in the spring, the jeweler will over-karat the chain itself so that the piece can average out plumb.
2) Another member posted about experiencing melt loss at a refinery. I want to define some reasonable expectations of melt loss. If you have cleaned your scrap up, i.e. removed non-precious metal-bearing clasps and removed stones, I would expect your melt loss to be from 0.5% to 1.5%. If you have not cleaned it up at all then 3% would be typical, possibly higher if you had large stones in the jewelry.
thanks for all the interesting comments on my last posting, and thanks for welcoming me to the network. I hope to be able to keep you informed on relevant refining and metal - purchasing topics. Please let me know if there are any topics or questions you would like me to look into....
Best Wishes,
Mira
www.RMCtwo.com
786-270-2483
786-270-2483
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786-270-2483