silver /gold melting

mike k.

Tenderfoot
Nov 25, 2007
7
1
cambridge , ontario
Detector(s) used
minelab sovereign and minelab excalliburs
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
mike k. said:
Im thinking of buying a silver /gold melter on ebay .these are 120 volt and sell for around $250.00 I have 100,s of silver rings ,and 100,s of gold items to melt into bars .Does anyone have any tips on this idea of buying a melting machine for this purpose ? - thanks

Why would you melt down a stamped piece of jewelry? Just leave it as it - will be much much more easy to sell. Just my 2 cents.
 

There is a huge difference between melting and smelting. Please google it. Melting a 14k gold ring results in a 14k gold bar. Not a pure gold bar. As such, only a complete fool would buy these from you. How would anyone know how pure these home brewed gold bars were? Are they 14k, 10k, or even something else? Anyone whose purchases these from you would have to just pay to have them assayed/smelted. Stamped gold rings are easier for a potential buyer to test and verify. They are less likely to be drilled and filled with lead and there are simple acid tests for purity.
 

ya, i would advise against it, unless you have the know how to smelt, not just melt. Need the know how, plus access to the necessary acids, not to mention the safety precautions etc. Just think it through.
 

You can simply melt silver or gold with a propane or mapp gas like a bernzo-matic available at any good hardware store. But I agree with TreasuePirate that it won't do you much good. No sterling or gold alloy 10K, 14K, 18K that has been soldered such as chains and most rings with applied stone settings can be melted down and be legally marked sterling or the karat of gold originally marked since the solder is of lower purity. Nobody buys bars of precious metal without there being the stamp of a reputable refiner or retailer on the bar. The reason refiners pay less than spot for precious metals is that they have to refine it out to pure and then re-alloy it to whatever the customer wishes. I make jewelry and I get a whole lot less for any scrap I return that has solder on it than scrap without solder. I also get less than I pay for un-soldered sheet and wire scrap than what I paid new for it since it still needs to be re-assayed, melted down and made into whatever shape someone wants it in (bar, wire, sheet, casting grain etc).
 

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