Are you experiencing a bit of burnout about investing in precious metals right about now?

If you are, don’t blame yourself. A lot of people are lacking enthusiasm about a lot of activities right about now, thanks to the unprecedented period of lockdown we have all been going through. But you should be enthusiastic and energized about your precious metal investing, and here is one reason why . . .

There have always been some health risks – most of them easily managed – associated with investing in precious metals. Some precious metal prospectors have tried to smelt piles of material that contained silver or gold, for example, and in the process have released noxious gases that hurt their lungs or made them feel sick. Other people have lit their garages on fire while melting of smelting metals. Other precious metal hunters have fallen down wells, gotten chased by dogs, gotten sunburned and encountered other minor health problems, but we won’t dwell on those.

If you live just about anywhere in our great nation today, you know that non-essential businesses have been closed during the covid-19 crisis. Those businesses have included “we buy gold” stores and other metal-related businesses such as jewelry stores and even pawnshops. Many of those non-essential enterprises are only reopening now, and you can only enter them if you are wearing a face mask and practicing social distancing.

“Can I find a precious metals refinery that’s still operating during the coronavirus period?” a man from Ohio asked recently.

The answer is, you can. In fact, Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners is still ready to test and recycle precious metals for our customers. How can we be doing that? Weren’t we required by law to close down because we are a nonessential business? No, we can continue working, and working safely, for several reasons.

While we were listening to talk radio last week, we heard someone call in and ask a timely question.

“Businesses all around me are closed and some will never reopen,” the caller said, “and I am wondering whether that will create an opportunity to buy their assets and inventory at low prices?”

Okay, everybody is worried right now about the state of our economy. And one thing you have to say about the current situation, bad as it is, is that those fears are based in reality. Small businesses are hurting. Some are closing, possibly for good. Individual investors have seen the value of their assets plummet – at least on paper. Kids who are graduating from college right now are having a terribly difficult time finding jobs. Plus, many of our institutions, ranging from universities to museums to theater companies, are wondering if they will ever bounce back.

“How do I make a profit by investing in precious metals?” seems like a pretty simple question. But even though it’s a simple question to ask, it is a difficult one to answer.

Why? Because there are a number of ways to make a profit when investing in precious metals. In today’s post, we will look at three of them.

Nobody likes a recession. But the fact remains that if another recession starts soon, precious metals are a good place to have your assets invested.  

During the last big historical recession of 2007-2009, the trading price of gold rose about 24%. In the same period, the Dow fell by about 35%. And something similar, though not as extreme, happened in preceding recessions. In the less-severe recession of 2001, gold prices rose more than 4%, while the Dow fell about 15%.

Would you like to make $100 or more today by sitting at your kitchen table snipping gold contacts? If you would, here’s what you need to know.

We haven’t written about drones on this blog for several years. In the time since, some things have stayed the same in the world of drones, and some things haven’t.

Have you ever worked for a company that was run in a somewhat unusual – maybe even crazy – way? Here are some stories of companies that were . . .

There are many legends about people who decided to hide their treasures in wells. One of the most common tales is that at the end of the Civil War, wealthy southern families tossed their silverware down their wells to prevent roaming Yankees from finding it.

What kind of precious metals do you own? Bullion bars or coins? A mixed collection of jewelry items you have picked up at tag sales and estate sales? A garage full of catalytic converters? A batch of old computers?

You have a pile of mixed metal scrap - shavings, powder, scrapings, what have you. You know that the batch probably contains quantities of platinum, gold, silver and maybe even platinum family metals like rhodium and osmium.  And you also have a strong suspicion that your pile of stuff contains small quantities of stainless steel, aluminum, copper and other low-value metallic scrap.

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you know that we like to offer advice on where to find platinum, silver and gold scrap in old factories. So we thought it would be interesting and informative to profile one such building - the old Tiffany manufacturing facility in Newark, New Jersey, that has now been converted to residential apartments. It is located at 90 Tiffany Boulevard - where else could it be?

Abracadabra! 

Back in medieval times, alchemists tried to convert silver and base metals into gold. At the same time, magicians tried to use gold to help their clients ward off evil, attract love, or cure various diseases.

Back in his student days, our friend Joe was short of cash one month. So to pay his rent, he sold his high school ring to a jewelry shop on 47th Street in New York.

“I took it in, we struck a deal on price and before he even paid me, the guy behind the counter stuck my ring on a mandrel, grabbed a big hammer, and smashed the gem stone that was mounted in it. I left the store with some cash in my pocket, but I wasn’t feeling too great about the whole experience.”

We found it at the bottom of a small bin of metal scrap that a client had sent to us for analysis. It was a little piece of gold-toned metal, about half an inch long. It was shaped like a barrel, with ribs running along it from end to end. We thought it was a bead, but it didn’t have a hole running through its middle - the kind of hole that would enable it to be used as part of a necklace. Our best guess was that it was part of a larger piece of jewelry - something that had fallen off a brooch or maybe even a tiara. There were no karat markings or other identifiers, so we figured it was made of base metal that had been covered with a thin plating of gold. But what the heck, we tested it and discovered that it was, in fact, made of 12-karat gold.

We have already written on this blog about strange things that have been made from precious metals over the centuries. (See “Be On the Alert for Strange Objects Made from Precious Metals,” a blog post we published on November 16, 2016.) In that post, we wrote about sterling-silver prosthetic noses, gold-plated iPhone cases and other oddities.

We would like to tell you a story that illustrates the fact that you could make a lot of money, simply by recycling quantities of gold, silver and platinum that could be hiding in plain sight in companies that manufacture or repair jewelry, dental appliances, silverware, or other common products.