Other metal Buillion

[GarouLady]

I know will be off subject but I was wondering if anyone is collecting copper buillion? I know about copper pennies and the law prohibing the melting of it. But pure copper bullion? I bought some on an impulse buy and while I probably won't buy anymore. The LCS I went to way way overpriced it, stupid me. Or platinum? I can't imagine that being worth anything but it's more expensive than gold! The only other time I have heard of platinum was in the DragonLance novels.

anyone else want to spot their two cents in?

Hugs and Smiles,
garoulady

 

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[Wilmingtonsilver]

Is there a reason to treat GarouLady like crap because she doesn't know as much as you guys do? All I was able to find through a 'simple google search' is why platinum jewelry is so expensive. Most of the reasons given were pretty specific to jewelry, as opposed to simple bullion. I might be able to find more in a more intensive search, but then, I thought it would just take a simple search? Does that mean I should ridicule you, Wilmingtonsilver? If you guys were just joking, then I take it all back, but I'm guessing you weren't. If you were, a 'j/k' would go a long way (as I learned from a wise post on this board, actually). Seriously, treat people with some basic respect, or don't say anything at all.

Wait a minute! You mean she wasn't joking? I thought all of her posts were supposed to be jokes! I thought she was a comedian. I mean who says they are werewolves, collects silver, and makes candle holders out of pvc and isn't looking for a laugh?

 

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[GlenDronach]

I have some observations to make but I think Tnet would not like me writing them.

 

[GarouLady]

As for the copper, that was where I made my mistake. I was watching CNBC and thought the price of copper was by the ounce. So I bought some copper ounces for 2 bucks apiece. ::grimaces:: then I found out that the copper price was by the pound. BIG!!! Mistake but you live and learn day to day. I don't collect copper anymore unless its wire to sell to the scrap dealers.

(As for the werewolf name, its a homeage to my former roleplaying life and the collecting silver and candelholders out of PVC pipe and the hiding silver under the wastebasket. All true, true, true. If you meant the comment sarcastically a <j/k> or smily face would be appreciated. ::Gives a shoutout to her Roleplaying family and packs:: heya! Heya!!)

LOL.
Hugs and Smiles,
Garoulady

 

[TimZim]

I don't think copper is worth keeping?

 

[CurlysGold]

Yes Tim you don't. Right?

 

[Gareb]

Historically until about 2008 Platinum was worth more than gold. Since then it has been surpassed by it. For this reason I think gold is currently overpriced and imo should only be purchased with upgrading 40% halves and war nickels collected at face. Then you stand to make a profit even in the short term if gold is revalued with a change in leadership.
As far as platinum, most of it comes from Russia and they are the ones that tend to set the price as to how much is actually released. In terms of value, it does make a very heavy resistant jewelry. But its main usage is in the fact that it extremely resistant to heat. It is used to make thermo couples (sp?) and in catalytic converters in exhaust systems. I won some once in an online contest, at the time I was in school and welding at night. Just to see if I could I tried to melt the wire together to make an ingot in which to fashion a ring. I was able to do it but it took 4 hours of constant heating and constant hammer pounding and even more heating to do it. It is unbelievably hard to work with and takes excessive amounts of heat. It is nothing like gold or silver. That is one of the reasons why the jewelry made from it is expensive.

As far as other bullion to collect. I also keep pure nickel coins. I know it is not worth much but I pull enough canadian older nickels and dimes and quarters from cwr to just set aside. Also french francs fall in this category. I know our nickels are a copper nickel combo but I save the pure nickel foreign stuff and I can freely melt it if I want to. Copper I personally do not waste my time on. It is even a pain to sell it down here as most of the the copper thieves here have to sell it out of state.
But to each their own. That's what makes it fun. (CRH that is, not copper theft )

 

[Seener53]

I highly suggest scrapping metals, with the prices so high the last couple of years it's totally worth it. Even stupid cans add up, that old car battery is about a 10$ bill. Any kind of wire is copper and even without stripping the coating pays .95-1.65 a pound. I had allot of clean wire and plumbing pipes that I was cashing in at the right times throughout the last 3 years. After getting $ from the scrap yard i would buy some of



these babies

 

[sheepdog_tx]

I was thinking about the scrap copper I have. Its mainly wire stripped out of old machines. I would love to find someone local who has a homemade foundry so I can melt it down into bars. I have about 3 Lbs worth. Not much for the scrap dealer but pretty good for me. We are doing construction at work and if I didn't work here I could have asked them to dumpster dive for all the copper I saw them throw away. Heck all the wood I saw them throwing away made me want to cry. what a waste of materials.

Hugs and Smiles,
Garoulady

http://www.monad.com/kurt/foundry.page.html

Why not do it yourself? I make copper, lead, zinc, nickel, and alluminum ingots at home. Easy enough to flux and store. Some are the size of candy bars, some are the size of pound cakes. I make enough in selling lead ingots (about $2/lb) to buy some silver..

Just for the record I dont make copper ingots from pennies, just scrap wire, plumbing pipe, etc. All the nickel is from silver plated nickel flatware i get at estate sales.

 

[Rushfan]

Sheepdog... is that your setup? Will have to check it out after work... can't take it all in in my phone... lol

 

[sheepdog_tx]

Sheepdog... is that your setup? Will have to check it out after work... can't take it all in in my phone... lol

I dont want to derail the OP's topic too much here but search for "Coffee can foundry pearlite". Basically you make a foundry but using two different sized cans with a layer of refractory masonry mix called Pearlite in the midddle with a propane jet inside. The jet hits the wall at an angle so it has to spin around. You put the crucible inside and well.. it gets hot. Very hot, as in you can melt mild steel. Can be built for very cheap but be careful, liquid metals kind of dangerous near ones skin. Also has to be outdoors as some fumes can be toxic (for example lead stars to turn into a gas around high 700s) if you get them high enough to vaporize.

You just pour the metal into steel ingots (muffin tins, load pans, soda cans, even wooden frame, whatever). I recommend ingots that are stackable such as the below one made from right angle bar stock. It makes nice ingots that are stackable or interlinkable for compact storage.




Melting Points
Metal Fahrenheit (f) Celsius (c)
Aluminum 1218 659
Brass 1700 927
Bronze 1675 913
Cast Iron 2200 1204
Copper 1981 1083
Gold 1945 1063
Lead 327 163
Magnesium 1204 651
Nickel 2646 1452
Silver 1761 951
Steel 2500 1371
Tungsten 6150 3399
Wrought Iron 2700 1482
Zinc 787 419


BTW GarouLady depending on the copper rounds $2 an ounce is not bad. Its not great but its about what you'd pay shipped from providentmetals, kitco, silvertowne, etc. As i mentioned in the PM chopped bar stock such as bus bar from a salvage yard is a great compact way to store very high purity copper without sorting pennies. It can be hand for usually $3.50/imperial pound, maybe less if you offer marked silver in trade.

 

[SilverHoarder07]

I worked out a deal with Andy (ryedale maker) and picked mine up for about $325

Its worth the investment, I have seen used units go for $300 on ebay.

I will be picking up $400 worth of pennies from work tomorrow and so far have sorted through about $625 since I began with results being between 29.5-30.5% copper.

Good luck

 

[Generic_Lad]

The problem I have with a lot of the "alternative" metal bullion (copper, titanium, lead, mercury, etc.) is that the price/weight ratio isn't favorable. While I certainly think that hoarding copper cents is a good idea (don't really know if the Ryedale can pay for itself yet though) pure copper rounds/bars are way more expensive than their metal content. I've picked up a couple here and there but they are curiosities and collectables, not serious investments. Transporting $1000 in copper weighs 270 pounds. The same amount in silver is less than 30 ounces. The same amount in gold is about 3/4 ounces. If there is industrial demand outside of the US, it is going to be hard to get that 270 pounds of copper to Brazil or Vietnam. On the other hand mailing that 30 ounces or 3/4 ounces of silver and gold is quite simple.

If I was going to invest in "industrial" metals, I'd trade paper. Silver, Gold and Platinum? Give me the shiny metal!

 

[SilverHoarder07]

Option: Flat rate shipping via USPS - $11.00 (I think), medium sized box can have up to 70lbs in it to comply with usps standards. $100 face value pennies ways just about 68 lbs so you should be good to go.

The fact that you can instantly find buyers for $100 FV copper pennies between $150-$170 can show you that the investment can pay off a Ryedale.

I currently have somewhere in the range of $200-225 FV copper pennies from running coin 1 day last week. I am getting another order in tomorrow and will continue to do so until something stops me.

A ryedale machine at this point in time is not a loss of money or a cost of the game....buy it, use it until you've decided other wise, sell it and recoup the majority of your money. As long as you've sorted something your probably going to come out ahead.

My $200 FV is worth over $540 in metal content but due to melt restriction I could probably only cash it out for $300 ($100FV+$50 profit per $100).

$100 profit per week x 4 weeks = ryedale paid off...then sell the ryedale and its all profit or continue to use it and make your money....

Me, I'm going to hoard, metals are just going to keep rising and I need a vacation home!

 

[GarouLady]

We have copper pipping that my dad bought before he died. I told my brother that we should sell it for scrap. he says that builders will pay a better price for it to use in their houses. ::shrugs:: who knows. But we have 15 batteries plus a mound of scrap metal that we are taking to a scrap dealer. One guy quoted us 6 bucks per battery. another said he would pay 32 cents per pound. my brother says each car battery weighs around 30 lbs so figuring it out, the 32 cents per lb is better at around 9 dollars per battery.And my dad, (::sniffles:: I miss him sooo much) saved the engine blocks from all the cars he worked on. All the metal I salvaged while cleaning out our garage I swear we have at least 500 to 700 dollars in scrap. If I can talk my mom into it, I want to buy at least 200 dollars worth of silver for her. She likes the eagles so I might check the melt bin at our coin shop and ask them what kinda deal they can give me. They know I will always send people their way. I tease them that they should give me a commission for all the referrals. Well Tomorrow I plan on going to my credit union and dump about 400 dollars worth of halves. It isn't my pick up spot and their coin counter doesn't take halves, so I am just going up the teller and turn in the halves. i am trying to figure out if I want to get a box of dimes or not, or just take the money and sit for a spell, since I have to wait till next tuesday to get another box of halves.

Thanks for reading my post.

Hugs and Smiles,
Garoulady

 

[crazyfish]

So what would happen if you had 100lbs of copper pennies, and they 'accidentily' fell into the crucible? Would you just have to throw away the 100lb blob of copper when it was done?

 

[sheepdog_tx]

So what would happen if you had 100lbs of copper pennies, and they 'accidentily' fell into the crucible? Would you just have to throw away the 100lb blob of copper when it was done?

Then you'd accidently trip over a secret service agent into a jail cell. Don't risk if for a small profit at the scrapyard. Keep in midn the scrap yard will report suspicious copper now days.

So some members IM'd me the following:

Hey you want to sell some of those ingots? Whats you rate on those?

No, only ingots I lead part with are to people that cast thier own bullets or fishing weights. If you are interested in some of these PM me, we might work something out but otherwise I stack my ingots for later date.

I have been contemplating scraping computers, but my big question is how to separate the different metals? The best I can come up with now is to melt everything together in a foundry and then do some chemistry on the resulting ingot to chemically dissolve the ingot. Then precipitating out the different metals individually. This would be very time consuming. I was wondering if you might have any ideas on the matter or could lead me to a site that might discuss this.

Thanks for any help,

You're over thinking this. If I give you a copper pipe with lead soldered to it what happens when we get the heat up slowly to lead's melting point? The copper doesn't melt, its point temp is much higher. So the idea is you can't fire the foundry up to max temp immediantly anyway so you melt mixed scrap in stages til lead, zinc, tin, copper, aluminum, silver, gold, etc all seperate naturally. You will need to flux with a carbon based material (wax from crayons or sawdust are all nice) and scoop the crud off. If you want to get really pure you continue to flux until the materials seperate from the inpurities. However if you're going to do computers watch out. The waste from it is highly toxic (lead, arsenic, mercury, high metals, etc), it needs to be done responsibly. Also recycle the steel from the cases for shred at the yards.

 

[Wilmingtonsilver]

Thanks for the update Sheepdog!

 

[sheepdog_tx]

Thanks for the update Sheepdog!

No problem, one more thing. Never never never get water near molten metal. If you even get a drop of water in a pool of metal it will create a steam pocket which will explode into a spray of several hundred or even thousand degree molten metal. No bueno to say the least. Good luck on your scrap ingots!

 

[Rushfan]

Sheepdog.... where can I find "owl-shaped" molds...? lol

 

[sheepdog_tx]

Sheepdog.... where can I find "owl-shaped" molds...? lol

You laugh but imagine ever brownie/cookie mold, cake mold, muffin pan, cornbread cron shapes, etc you see ingots people make from them all. For all my "white" metals I use one shape per so theres no mix up between say pure lead and wheel weight lead (has tin, arsenic, antimony, etc), pewter molds, soldier scrap molds, etc.

So with that said...



BTW another question by email

Is there any money in this? Cant I just buy the ingots from a scrap yard?

No scrapyards just gather and resell, the ingots are made at the foundry. As far as money I only sell the lead but heres food for thought: I pay nothing for the lead so other than a few bucks of propane and an extra gallon of gas to pickup I have no cost in. I can gather about 2 buckets every couple of months weighing about 250 to 300 pounds so lets say 275. After fluxing this will make about 250 pounds of ingots which I sell at $2 a pop so $500 at a time with maybe 2 hours invested and almost no capital. You do the math. While not as common with copper etc theres alot more room ceiling for profit and alot more people wanting ingots with less places to get them. Even though i own some decent stacks of PMs I own alot more wealth in base metals which are considerably harder for someone to haul off or pocket.