Anyone here buying rhodium plated products?

[FISHEYE]

Anyone here buying rhodium plated products?(police badges)I have a bunch of it to sell. Rhodium is higher than any of the other precious metals.

 

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[Silver Surfer]

First, how would you get the rhodium off to sell, secondly, how much could there be on a plated item?? Thirdly, why are they using a very expensive PM for police badges??

 

[FISHEYE]

Maybe reverse electrolisys.Its a heavy plate.cops,cities have all kinds of money to spend.

 

[goldsilverpro]

Rhodium plating, when used on this type application, is a thin, hard, shiny, durable, whitish, metallic protective coating mainly used to prevent tarnish of the base metal. Due to stress problems with thicker deposits, it is usually only about .000005" - .000030" thick, more or less. That's approximately $0.06 - $0.36 worth of rhodium per square inch of plated area. It's one of the most inert metals on the planet and I know of no electrolytic solution that will dissolve it. Aqua regia won't even touch it under normal circumstances. To remove it from the less expensive jewelry (silver, usually) or white gold (which contains nickel, which some people are allergic to), on which it is often applied, it is usually buffed off. The jeweler doing this doesn't worry about recovering it, since it has little value at the thickness it is plated.

I would say that the scrap value of those badges would be primarily in the base metal. The purpose of the rhodium is not to add value to the piece, but to protect it. Even if you had a ton of those badges, you would have a very hard time finding a refiner that would pay you for the rhodium. It's just too difficult and expensive to refine and the majority of refiners wouldn't be set up to refine it. Rhodium refining isn't something a hobbyist refiner could just jump into. It requires a lot of knowledge.

 

[jewelerdave]

Rhodium plating, when used on this type application, is a thin, hard, shiny, durable, whitish, metallic protective coating mainly used to prevent tarnish of the base metal. Due to stress problems with thicker deposits, it is usually only about .000005" - .000030" thick, more or less. That's approximately $0.06 - $0.36 worth of rhodium per square inch of plated area. It's one of the most inert metals on the planet and I know of no electrolytic solution that will dissolve it. Aqua regia won't even touch it under normal circumstances. To remove it from the less expensive jewelry (silver, usually) or white gold (which contains nickel, which some people are allergic to), on which it is often applied, it is usually buffed off. The jeweler doing this doesn't worry about recovering it, since it has little value at the thickness it is plated.

I would say that the scrap value of those badges would be primarily in the base metal. The purpose of the rhodium is not to add value to the piece, but to protect it. Even if you had a ton of those badges, you would have a very hard time finding a refiner that would pay you for the rhodium. It's just too difficult and expensive to refine and the majority of refiners wouldn't be set up to refine it. Rhodium refining isn't something a hobbyist refiner could just jump into. It requires a lot of knowledge.

I second this, I dont even bother going after it and I see bits of it in my AR all the time when doing stone removal jobs etc just not worth going after, I suppose someday it will be recovered in the slimes and minor amounts of chlorides I put aside for "later"

some things just are not worth chasing after. Plate is one of those things. When I buy rhodium plating solution you get 1 gram in a liter of solution for plating, and you can plate a lot of jewelry with that solution. the first one I used it took me 3 years and that was doing 5 to 20 rings a week.
Bottom line, not much is on there, and its not worth going after. I now refine thousands of oz of gold per year, and only a little bit is white alloy, most people scrap yellow. the amount of rhodium that is attached may be up to $5 to $18 worth based on gold silver pros estimates and they look accurate to me. and thats when your refining a couple Million dollars in gold per year. Ill take my time to refine more gold and do other business than try to get a dinners worth of Rh over a year

 

[EARL51]

I Rhodium plate all day every day. It is plated in less time than it takes to type this. Usually over bright nickel plate. We don't bother to strip it off rejects so that tells you something.

 

[goldsilverpro]

I Rhodium plate all day every day. It is plated in less time than it takes to type this. Usually over bright nickel plate. We don't bother to strip it off rejects so that tells you something.

You couldn't even strip it off chemically if you wanted to.