Most small companies are run by businessmen and businesswomen who are committed to doing business honestly. Even if you have a dispute with them or they have done something that strikes you as less than honorable, they are likely to try to “make things right.” After all, they want to maintain a good reputation and avoid getting negative reviews online.

If you are considering selling gold to a gold recycler or having them extract gold from scrap you own, here are some important questions you should ask:

“Eureka! After California’s Heavy Rains, Gold Seekers Are Giddy,” an article that Thomas Fuller published in The New York Times on April 22, 2023, reports that the recent heavy rains in California have caused a lot of gold to wash into streams in the state. He profiles one prospector who pulled $100 worth of gold out of a stream after only 20 minutes of hunting. That’s a pretty impressive haul.

Hiding your jewelry and valuables in a place that is not secure, such as a dresser drawer or jewelry box, may not provide sufficient protection. Burglars often target these areas first because they know that jewelry is commonly kept there. 

If you do choose to hide your jewelry in your home, make sure the hiding place is not easily discoverable. For example, do not hide your jewelry in a typical hiding spot like a sock drawer or under your mattress. Instead, consider a more creative hiding spot that is not as obvious.

The good news is, you have scrap gold you would like to sell for top dollar. The scrap could be a batch of old gold-filled eyeglass frames, a box full of sputtering targets that were used in electroplating operations, or even a collection of old gold-plated costume jewelry. 

You might not know how much gold your scrap contains – you need to have it tested. But you do know that you would like to sell it and reclaim the value of the gold it contains. 

People tend to think that recovering the gold from gold scrap is a straightforward process. You heat the scrap to a high temperature and then collect the gold that was in it, right?

Well, it’s not that simple. Recycling gold scrap can also be a complex process, and there are several mistakes that can reduce both the quality and the quantity of gold that is obtained during recycling.

Precious metal refining companies specialize in the extraction and purification of precious metals, such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, from raw materials such as ore, electronic waste, and scrap metal.

Remember, gold can be found in various types of ores that occur in nature. Most often, you will find mining companies have set up operations to extract them from the ground. In other cases, those mining companies once had set up operations in those locations to mine gold but have since extracted all the gold they could from the ground and have shut down. 

We have written many articles about metal detectors on this blog, and with good reason. 

Metal detectors, even basic models that cost little more than $100.00, are some of the most powerful tools ever devised for finding buried precious metals on beaches, in open fields, on the sites of old buildings and factories, and other prime prospecting sites. 

People are making money – sometimes a lot of it – by using metal detectors. And chances are pretty good that you can too. 

Many people believe that Archimedes (c. 287 – c. 212 BC), the Greek mathematician and scientist, invented the karat system of classifying the purity of gold that is still used today. Although he was an historically important astronomer, engineer, inventor, and mathematician, he didn’t!

The last time we wrote about Pyrite (which is another name for Fool’s Gold) was in a post we published back in 2014. So we thought it would be a good time to write about the topic again and focus on this question . . . 

We have written about sputtering targets before on the Specialty Metals Blog. To review, they are multilayered disks that contain several different metals. When they are secured  inside a plasma plating tank and electrical current flows through them, their uppermost layer of metal (be it gold, platinum, or another metal) is dispersed into the plasma inside the tank.  Due to the flow of electrons, it adheres to the surface of whatever metal object is being plated.

If you look for business liquidation auctions in your area, you will find an interesting variety of businesses that are closed and that have hired auction firms to liquidate their equipment and supplies. 

In a recent search, we found auctioneers that were liquidating exercise equipment from health clubs . . . ice cream freezers from scoop shops . . . welding equipment from a muffler shop . . . and stoves from a pizzeria. 

If you ask “Where can I find a gold refinery near me?” online, you will get a lot of hits. Depending on where you live, you will find listings for “we buy gold” businesses, scrap metal yards, jewelry manufacturers, and probably more kinds of businesses too. 

But We Predict Demand for Them Will Only Continue to Rise

LKAB, a government-owned Swedish mining company, recently discovered Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals in northern Sweden. The possibility of mining significant quantities of these rare elements in Europe is big news.

White gold is an alloy of gold and at least one white metal – sometimes more than one. Those additional metals could be nickel, silver, palladium, and/or zinc. Sometimes a little copper is added too, to make the alloy less brittle and easier to shape. But only a little copper can be added, because if you add too much of it to gold, the resulting alloy becomes pinkish in hue. (That’s where so-called pink gold comes from.)

Why We Are More Convenient – and Offer Better Value – than Gold Buyers Near You

When you have items to sell that are made of gold, silver, platinum or maybe pieces of jewelry that contain gemstones, chances are your first thought is, “I need to find a gold buyer near me.”

That’s a logical first thought to have. If there is an honest and reputable company near you that buys precious metals, what could be easier than getting in your car and going to see them? But there are a lot of good reasons why hundreds, and maybe even thousands of people across the United States have decided that it is smarter, and even more convenient, to do business with us. 

A 1948 Packard weighed about 3,800 pounds when it rolled off the assembly line. No wonder. It was powered by a straight eight motor that was about the size of a refrigerator. A 1948 Lincoln Continental, which was powered by a V-12 engine, weighed about 4,000 pounds. 

What do cars weigh today?

Christmas always brings a lot of new presents into my house. It’s a great time of year. 

But while I was shopping this week, I started to think about some of the presents I got in years past. Some of them are still in their original boxes, unopened! Wouldn’t this be a great time to pull those old presents out and decide to start using them now and if not, whether to sell them. 

It could also be a time to remove printed circuit boards from some of them and reclaim the gold and silver they contain. Maybe you are like me and have old items lying around that could contain precious metals that can be removed and recycled profitably. 

Is there a precious metal investor on your holiday shopping list?

If so, we have some great gift suggestions for you. 

If you are a regular reader of the Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners blog, you will remember that we published some gift suggestions just a year ago to help you with your 2021 holiday shopping. For today’s post, we have revisited some of those gift suggestions and we are updating our list to reflect the fact that some prices for these gifts have fallen and some great new gift items have just been introduced.