You’re bound to find old black and white photographs in nearly every junk or antique store you visit. You might find one nicely framed old photo hanging on a wall. Or you might find a cardboard box that’s chock full of prints on paper, gathering dust in a corner.

Silver can be found in many kinds of liquids, including printing inks, cosmetics, medicinal creams, chemicals used in a variety of industrial processes, and more. And as we have written on this blog before, Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners has the expertise and experience to separate silver scrap from the liquids where they are found. In many cases, that process is simple - we introduce a chemical which causes silver to precipitate out of the solution. That’s another way of saying that the silver falls to the bottom.

The idea is simplicity itself. You take a pile of stuff that contains precious metals and reduce it to ash by burning it, then process the ash with a strong chemical that removes everything but the metal. Wow, you just turned a pile of worthless-looking stuff into a small quantity of bright precious metal.

We have noticed that it is relatively difficult to find scrap gold in dentists’ offices that are closing, probably because those dentists are savvy enough to capture and sell gold items, not sell them at bargain prices. Silver, however, is another matter. Where can you find silver to buy, and then recycle using a qualified precious metals recycler like Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners?

If you’ve visited an art gallery that specializes in antique photographs, you’ve noticed that some of the most beautiful on display are “Silver Gelatin Prints.” They tend to be large and show stunning black and white images that have remarkable shadings of dark and light. You also might have noticed that the most valuable were taken by famous historical photographers like Ansel Adams and Alfred Steiglitz. How can you make money investing in old prints like those? Here’s what you need to know

Can silver be profitably recycled from printing ink? The answer to that question is yes, silver can be obtained from many printing inks. When you introduce the right chemical into them, the silver precipitates and falls to the bottom.  But here is some additional information you need to know.

If you’re looking to buy a business that could have untapped quantities of precious metals, which businesses should you be looking at? That question is well worth asking, because when people dispose of businesses they often do not take the time to diligently assess the value of the assets that they are selling. Sometimes they are selling because they are in financial distress. Sometimes they have lost interest and simply want to dispose of a business. Sometimes they are selling businesses that belonged to relatives who became too infirm or old to run them. Sometimes owners have passed away and lawyers want to sell businesses quickly to settle estates.