Let’s say that you want to give your favorite person a really special present for the holidays – something that stands out. Let’s also assume that you want to give a present that is made of platinum, because platinum is especially beautiful and memorable.

There’s no doubt that precious metals are waiting to be found in dumpsters.  Alert dumpster divers can find gold, platinum, and silver in dumpsters in locations like these . . .

Not long ago, a man found two 55-gallon steel drums full of gold paint. He was very excited and called us up.

“How much gold do you think they contain?” he asked.

Have you ever sold an unwanted piece of gold jewelry to a jeweler or one of those “We Buy Gold” stores?

It’s a straightforward process. You walk in, the person behind the counter checks your item with a gold testing kit, and makes you a cash offer that you can either accept or reject on the spot. But in reality, the person on the other side of the counter is making a lot of calculations that he or she is almost certainly not sharing with you . . .

Finding a big gold nugget or other chunk of gold is every gold investor’s dream. And it does happen occasionally. It is far more likely that you will find small chunks of the precious metal – and likely that you will overlook some of them when you go hunting for gold in estate sales, antique stores, and even around your own house.

As a precious metal investor, you are already on the lookout for platinum scrap. You are also on the lookout for sterling silver, even though it is worth much less per ounce than platinum is.

But what about sterling platinum? What is it, and what do you need to know about making money from investing in it?

There are many legends about people who decided to hide their treasures in wells. One of the most common tales is that at the end of the Civil War, wealthy southern families tossed their silverware down their wells to prevent roaming Yankees from finding it.

Gold, platinum, silver and rhodium are called precious metals because they are valuable. You already knew that! Yet some people toss them away anyway.

Here are some tips that can prevent you from literally giving them away without realizing it.

“Poison fears on 'Arsenic Avenue': Families forced out of their homes as studies find suburban street was built on toxic soil,” an article that appeared in Australia’s Daily Mail on September 6, 2018, points out all too clearly the health dangers that can result when people are exposed to poisons that are left behind near old gold mines.

Are you interested in making money in platinum scrap? There are plenty of reasons you should be. The biggest could be that the new tariffs on items imported from China seem poised to raise the cost of platinum-containing items.