Dummies Guide to EASY silver bullion refining at home as a long term precious metal investment

reply to post by Berenai


thank you

This is an excellent tutorial, thanks for posting.

Since fiat currencies will begin their inexorable decline and slided into oblivion, by default this will mean that the prices of gold, silver and other commodities will rise drastically in comparison.

Currently, we see this QE3 cash influx inflating a stock market bubble that too will burst, the last refuge for this unwise quantitative easing will be inflation - if not hyperinflation. Remember, wall street climbs a wall of worry - this is what we are seeing. Besides, there is noplace else for this money to go, for now...

How would one go about producing their own gold bullion, silver bullion or other precious/semi-precious metal ingots, coinage or bars? Are there any inexpensive minting presses to be had? Can one be easily built?

Your post was well assembled, the photos were self explaining, and the information provided was probably something that even the most "jack of all trades" individual never learned. I even salved it for adding to my personal how-to collection. I look forward to your Gold refining walk-through.

Let me give one advantage to your method - portability. Instead of having a large, loud, bag of coins one can shrink it down to a few pebbles while maintaining a near identical amount of silver.

But there are three disadvantages I can immediately think of, especially for those who plan to use this silver for barter.

1) Silver, like any precious metal needs to be recognized as NOT FAKE. These drops could be any numerous metals, and most people do not carry the tools to process and test if the metals are pure. Not suggesting the method does not produce 99.9% pure silver, I'm just saying a layman on the street might not want to "take your word for it".

I DO NOT recommend melting down recognizable coins for their silver content. You destroy any credible proof of minting. Most people who would be interested in accepting silver know how to look up the metal content based on the type of coin.

2) You lose wealth in the process. It may not seem substantial but if you do this more than a few coins and you will have lost all your copper value (which does add to the melt value) and you will have lost a finite amount of silver due to the process of dissolving it, precipitation, filtering it, and rinsing it.

3) the tools to refine the silver may out cost the metal value its self. Depending on your abilities to obtain all the tools needed it may cost more to process the metal than it was to acquire it in the first place. Yes most are common, but after you use them for the refining process you may never want to use them for anything else again.

___________

Just a few things to keep in mind. I'm sure most of you that are collecting silver are doing so as a hedge against inflation as it's a poor man's gold. But some plan to barter with it when SHTF. So unless you plan to make jewelry (you can buy jewelers silver for little to no premium) or Colloidal Silver . I do not recommend performing this process for any more than to learn a new chemistry trick.

Most people will accept Silver or other precious metals as payment for spot value or below. Most people will only sell a metal at above spot value (the difference being called "premium"). So remember the cost of refining adds to the cost of purchasing the metal, meaning you may be paying more for a bartered item after processing than you would have prior to processing. (unless there is a premium market for refined silver, like industrial purposes, and then you might luck out and trade it for a premium.)

Originally posted by earthdude
The gold on those parts is one or two microns thick. From a mountain of these parts you would only get a speck of gold. Throw them away. Yeah, I know you love the color of those connectors, but it is too thin to mess with. You end up wasting money and time, seen it happen. He used an icecream machine to aggitate the solution of connectors and chemicals, all costing way more than he extracted.

No buddy you are wrong, they are not too thin to mess with. There is a business hre in my city that processes this stuff and makes a goood deal of money. You dont need to seperate them with a ice cream machine. I just cut off the fingers and put them in a solution then follow the similar steps to the ops silver refining process. Considering 1 gram is almost 50$ now, it is quite worth it.

I was at a coin exchange a couple of weeks ago. There was a man who had melted down silver. They wouldnt buy it. They said they could not be sure of the total silver content without re-smelting it. Doesnt sound like a good idea. They would however buy gold/silver coins and jewelry.

Just sayin...

Originally posted by Mike.Ockizard
I was at a coin exchange a couple of weeks ago. There was a man who had melted down silver. They wouldnt buy it. They said they could not be sure of the total silver content without re-smelting it. Doesnt sound like a good idea. They would however buy gold/silver coins and jewelry.

Just sayin...

That is a perfect example Mike

reply to post by Mike.Ockizard


You can use nitric acid to test the metal...
The acid will turn a certain colour telling you the purity (or non-purity) of said tested metal.

It's a very simple process that many use.

There is another way by using electrical testing equipment but, apparently, they are not as accurate as a skilled acid tester can be..

This thread has become so big...

Has anyone posted on the cost to set this up?
I know coins can be found through ebay, I'm guessing when you find coins you need to research them and see their relative silver content?

Anyone know what the break even point is?
Silver % in the coins to the amount you have to pay for all the coins.
Say if the coins cost 10 dollars for 5 coins they need to have x% silver to break even.

reply to post by Extralien


Understood Extralien. The guy had created a silver brick about the size of a pack of cigarettes. The coin exchange employee said that testing only tests the surface. He said for all he knew, the inside of the brick could be less pure or a different metal altogether. Makes sense. The other thought is if you are collecting silver/gold to hedge against a currency devaluation then coins would be better to have as they are easily recognized and most likely genuine. Thier content is documented or certified by the country that stamped them.

Even if you own certified bars, they need to be assayed by a pro before you can sell them. The alternative to this is to store them, after being assayed, in a certified storage system that guarantees they have not been tampered with since being assayed.

If SHTF then I wouldn't trust any block being touted as solid precious metal. There's bound to be impure stuff out there being passed off as real.

reply to post by Pigraphia


The country where the coins were issued certifies the gold or silver content. Pretty easy to look it up. The purity of the gold eagle or 1/4 ounce coin is up there.

From lynncoins.com...

Purity of the American Eagle Gold coins
The US mint started making the gold American Eagle coins in 1986. All the sizes (1/10, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 ounce) are 91.67% gold with the rest of the metal in the coin mixture being copper and a trace of silver. This is why a 1/10 oz $5 American Eagle coin will weight


slightly more than a tenth of an ounce. Each $5 Eagle coin contains 1/10 of an ounce of pure gold melted together with the small amount of copper and silver. The copper and silver give the coin a hardness that pure gold does not offer, thereby letting the gold coin better withstand wear.
 
91.67% gold purity is equal to 22 karat gold
91.67% gold content is a high purity of gold for a coin and is the equivalent of 22kt gold.
In comparison, the old US Gold coins made prior to 1933 were usually 90.0% gold and 10% copper.  A few modern day gold coins are made of 99.9% pure gold, such as the Canadian gold Maple Leaf, Austria Philharmonic, and the new US BUFFALO 1 ounce gold coin.  Because the modern coins are intended for investors and won't be handled much, the softness of the gold bullion is not much of a concern.
Throughout history most gold coins have been in the 80 to 90% purity range.

reply to post by Pigraphia

Ebay seems quite easy. Many coins list their purity on the advert or in the title from what I've seen. Mainly 925 grade and sometimes less but I haven't seen many Silver coins with less than 40%. Unfortunately much is priced that it wouldn't be worth it unless you are very good friends with a Silver dealer who is willing to give you more than the 15-18 euros (15GBP,20USD) per troy ounce I see quoted here. Just do a google search for "scrap silver price" and you will find enough links possibly closer to you geographically.

If it was that easy I guess everyone would be doing it. As for set up costs I think someone did price it out or maybe that was the Gold thread. In any case "not much" is as good an answer as any. Ten or twenty dollars/euros rather than hundreds. You still have to source the Silver though and from what I've seen on the net, you will need patience and luck if you are hoping to buy it from sites like ebay. It's still worth keeping an eye on though and if you have to buy the scrap, Silver is a lot cheaper than Gold.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


Thanks for the tips.
I certainly have a lot more to google now than before and that's alwayse the right direction.

From what I've seen I think it's possible to pull a profit just not fully replace your income.
Just keep looking for deals on the coins and snag the good ones when they come up.
Slow and steady and only sell your silver in big batches, from what I know of precious gold buyers they are willing to give a little more money for a larger amount instead of buying a little at a time.

reply to post by Pigraphia

Just to prove I have really been looking here are 2 examples of a good and a bad advert. One ad reports a weight of 411 grams (almost a pound!) but mentions no hallmarks. It could well turn out to be quite a lot less than 411 grams of Silver that you are left with.
The other reports fully what it is. A slight difference.

Both have silly prices for our purposes though.
www.ebay.co.uk...

www.ebay.co.uk...
I have no connection to the sellers, just 2 random examples.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver

Good looking out.
Seeing the spoon and knife makes me think.
Estate sales!
I remember being so zonked out after my dad died and having surgery that I didn't notice people were stealing from us.
I would never steal from people but an estate sale might be a good way to pick up scrap jewelry and even old computers for the trace gold.

Great thread, knowledge is power for sure. I like learning new things, and I learned a lot from this thread for sure.

Doesn't seem practicle for me to do, and here is why. Precious metals, are only as precious, as people are prosperous, if that makes any sense. When there is plenty of prosperity, there are plenty of people willing to pay for worthless things like gold and diamonds. When times are tough, people are a lot less willing to put high value on such things.

Personally, I tend to put high value and priority on things I can use in good times, and in bad. Things like ammo, seeds, purification tablets, the list goes on and on. I can only hope that one day things will start looking up again, and I can invest in things like refining scrap silver and gold etc.

For the past five years or so, it has been a struggle just to survive. Keeping the two young girls I took responsibility for clothed, dressed, educated and happy have been my priority. And if I get to eat once in a while, that is a bonus.

Where am I going with all this? Well, this is a conspiracy forum afterall, right? If someone where to come up to me if TSHF, and offer me some of these silver/gold buttons for some of my crops..... Well I would laugh and send them on their way. Not out of malice, but what good are metals to me? How could I even verify that it was legit silver or gold? Who would trade me something I need for it?

I notice there are what seem to be at least 2 kinds of sellers on ebay, price-wise in any case.

Those starting an auction for 99 cents and those setting a definite "Buy Now" price. The former always eventually runs way above the market value for the scrap that you could ever hope to get and the latter does the same up front. In other words they want top dollar leaving nothing over for anyone else.

I'll keep the idea in my head but it seems impossible to do this for financial reasons without having a better source for scrap than internet. Living in a village there is no possibility of sales, flea markets and the like close by. I have no money to invest so that is also pointless for me. Ah well, it was a nice little pipe dream.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


Yeah, you are right, you can't hope to make any money doing this unless you have some kind of access to cheap sources. Don't even think about buying from people who are trying to sell for profit themselves.

reply to post by tauristercus


I work with nitric acid everyday for PH down. I'm a hydroponic gardener. It is very safe, The people whogave you flak on this issue are fools. Its like ANYTHING, use ad directed. Duh....

reply to post by tauristercus


I just came from the gold thread, if you do more of these guides, I will read them... they are really awesome, you post pictures exactly when something you are explaining in words calls for it and your pictures are really good, very informative about the right aspects of the concepts you're trying to get across and obviously written from a place of "ok what do they need to know next and whats going to be going through their head as they do it and/or read this..." very cool.
S+F

-TF

Because the topic of trust in those you would trade with has comes up, here is an example of the most experienced being deceived.



Here is the thread containing discussion about the topic:
Largest Private Refinery Discovers Gold-Plated Tungsten Bar

Again, I do not recommend you do this large scale, unless you are trying to use the silver for industrial purposes.