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

Bit of a gold / silver bug myself - have pure bars and coins, but lots of junk silver. This thread is one of the best I have read in ages. Will be try this when the weather gets a bit better outside.

Would give OP a billion stars and flags if I could.

Great post! I did not realize that silver could be refined this easy. A minor point that I spotted was that according to your graphs, silver is declining in value again.

First of all - S&F to the OP for a most interesting and valuable post.

Originally posted by ANNED
Your 99.9 is close enough to sell to a refiner but gold and silver ingots need to be .999 fine

Close enough?? I'd say it was spot on. 99.9%, when expressed as a decimal value, IS .999 fine.

Just sayin'

reply to post by tauristercus


pure genius, gonna make myself a silver bar =P just one question, how would a shop jewellers test if its all legit without its stamps? Does it need to be sent off? And is the whole process legal? If i just walk into a jewellers with a pound of silver will it raise questions?

reply to post by tauristercus


Absolutely awesome my friend, great post!

My only question is...is there a way to get the copper back? I know its not as precious of a metal, but certainly still has some value.

reply to post by tauristercus


Nice thread,makes me want to have a crack at it-I have some similar coins and a few old bits of broken jewellery I may use.I have a semi covered back yard which would be ideal.
Love the use of potato-Have you thought of cutting an "ingot"shaped cavity into a potato-that way you could make your own little silver bars.

My only worry is being able to buy nitric acid-I am in the UK,and I am not sure you can buy the stuff at 70%pure without some kind of license.

Does anyone know?

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


Amazon and ebay my friend, its a little expensive, but once you spent the initial money to get started you won't need to buy it again for a little while.

reply to post by mutatismutandis


'My only question is...is there a way to get the copper back?'

Maybe electrolysis? I'm not sure, only hazarding a guess.

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


www.amazon.co.uk...=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1329670322&sr=8-3

In the UK too, that looks like the stuff?
Not as expensive as i thought it would be either.

Thank you for showing us this process. I can't wait for your gold refining thread.
2nd line

Nice one Wolvo and OrionTri,
That is the stuff.
Cool I don't have to try it using battery acid then-would that work I wonder,or is it the wrong type of acid?

Hmm,I may give this a go when the spring comes-I have saved the whole first page for future reference.

Great info, going to try it out on some silverware.

Just one question:

How much time from start to finish was in your coin example?

oops 2:

What happens or how do you know if you haven't used enough acid/water mixture - does it ruin the process or do you just start over?

Amazing thread, thank you very much for posting here on ATS. My biggest praise is the way in which you wrote the turorial, very easy to follow. Definitely knowledge that i am now glad to have, so thanks again. Would love to see you post about gold too, just to have the matching set.

reply to post by el1jah


Wow, this is cool. I'd like to know other sources for silver and gold.

you don't have to use a US coin.the peso has silver also ( look up dates) and can be obtained cheaper. Nice thread by the way!

reply to post by saint4God

The value of silver has plummeted since then. In recent weeks, it has hovered around $5 an ounce a

Not sure where your getting your info but it is dead wrong silver has been hovering around $33-$35 an ounce for months now and it was nearly at $50 at one point. It hasn't been at $5 for nearly a decade.

With all that silver you'll probably never need it, but you could have a STELLAR career as a technical writer.

Muy Bravo OP!

Very cool thread. Would this work with old electronics as well? Obviously you would need more nitric acid, but have you ever tried that? I wonder if there is enough silver/gold in old electronic boards. Anyone know?

Edit: Does this process work for silver plated items?

Originally posted by ihelpwithapostrophes

edit on 19-2-2012 by ihelpwithapostrophes because: .

Enlightening first post....

Welcome to ATS...don't be shy, have your say. I did give you your first star for effort. You'll need to earn the rest.

Des