A caller to our office asks, “What are the most profitable items to scrap?”

That is a very intelligent question because when you stop to analyze it, you see that it contains several other questions that are also very smart to ask:

In most parts of the country today, “We Buy Gold” stores have become common sights. But chances are you haven’t seen any stores that post prominent offers to buy platinum, rhodium, or even silver.

So what are you supposed to do if you have platinum scrap that you would like to sell or recycle?

People have been asking us a lot of questions about platinum over the last few months. So as a service to you, our readers, we will devote today’s post to answering some of the most common questions we have heard.

Don’t Be Tricked when You Sell Your Platinum . . . Be Treated Honestly Instead!

Trick or treat! Those words might be used on Halloween. But they are also worth keeping in mind when you sell platinum scrap. Will you be tricked when you sell it, or treated fairly? Here are some things to consider.

Platinum comes in many forms. There are nice bars of platinum bullion that sell at high prices. (After all, platinum is trading for $872.00 on the London Fix . . . why shouldn’t bullion bars be selling for a lot of money?) Platinum can also be found in catalytic converters, in some aircraft components, and in used laboratory testing equipment. 

We have often written on this blog about places where you can acquire precious metal scrap for pennies on the dollar. Today we would like to offer advice on a higher level, by telling you about some places where you can get precious metal scrap for free.

“I just got a beautiful piece of silver-plated jewelry,” says a man in New York. “Is there any chance that the silver is plated over gold?”

That’s a logical question

Jewelry makers use lots of different ways to indicate the purity of the metal that they use in their products. They stamp certain pieces of jewelry as 24K gold, 18K gold, Sterling Silver, and in lots of other ways. And just as soon as you think you have started to understand what all the different terminology means, along comes this term, and you wonder what the heck it is . . .

Nobody likes a recession. But the fact remains that if another recession starts soon, precious metals are a good place to have your assets invested.  

During the last big historical recession of 2007-2009, the trading price of gold rose about 24%. In the same period, the Dow fell by about 35%. And something similar, though not as extreme, happened in preceding recessions. In the less-severe recession of 2001, gold prices rose more than 4%, while the Dow fell about 15%.

If you go to your local bookstore and say, “I am looking for a book that will tell me everything I need to know about investing in platinum scrap,” the salesperson will probably respond with a shrug or a blank stare.

You see, there aren’t any books that can tell you what you need to know about making money recycling platinum scrap. But that’s okay, because we have covered everything you need to know right here on the Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners Blog.

With platinum trading on the London Fix for $831 per ounce, it’s no wonder that precious metal investors look to platinum as a top investment today. Its trading price falls about halfway between the current Fix price of only $17.25 for an ounce of silver, and $1510.80 for an ounce of gold. Plus, traders realize that although platinum is rarer than gold and certainly a lot rarer than silver, many kinds of platinum scrap are not too difficult to find. They know that if they can buy platinum scrap at pennies on the dollar, which is often possible, they can send it to us for testing and recycling and profit handsomely on their investment.

“Why Thermocouples Could Be the Smartest Precious Metal Investments Today,” a post on this blog on July 19th, 2019, explained why investing in scrapped thermocouples is a very smart move for precious metal investors today.

In today’s post we would like to examine in more depth a question that we only touched on in that earlier post. Let’s explore it some more!

What is the most powerful tool for finding gold, platinum, silver and other precious metals?

When you think about that question, chances are you think about using a metal detector. And yes, a metal detector can be a great device to use when you are looking for precious metals in outdoor areas like the beach or open fields. There are other good tools too, like camera-equipped drones.

If you work in an industry that uses industrial catalysts, you probably know what they are and what precious metals yours contain.

What you might not know, however, is that the catalysts that have lived out their life in your factory could still contain significant amounts of precious metals like gold, silver and even platinum that are well worth recycling. If you are not sure how much precious metal could be reclaimed by having them recycled by a precious metals refinery like Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners, we urge you to call our consultants today at 800-426-2344. We are here to offer advice and testing on your used catalysts. In just a few minutes on the phone with us, you could discover that you are sitting on precious metals that could be worth a lot of money.

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you have noticed that we have written many posts about thermocouples in the past. Hopefully, you’ve been gleaning information about what thermocouples are and how you can profit from the platinum, rhodium, silver and other precious metals they contain.

In the classic movie The Graduate, a man takes a recent college graduate aside and says to him, “I have one word to say to you . . . PLASTICS!”

That is a famous scene, and we have some similar advice for you. If you want to profit richly from investing in precious metals, “We have just one word to say to you . . . PLATINUM!”

If you went to see your physician a few years ago and you were having chest pains, chances are that your doctor sent you to get an x-ray (a technology that relied heavily on silver), an electrocardiogram (which used printed circuit boards that contained gold and silver), and a round of blood tests (which didn’t have much to do with precious metals of any kind).

The idea is simplicity itself. You take a pile of stuff that contains precious metals and reduce it to ash by burning it, then process the ash with a strong chemical that removes everything but the metal. Wow, you just turned a pile of worthless-looking stuff into a small quantity of bright precious metal.

We have written on this blog in the past about stoves, furnaces, space heaters and other “hot” places you can find platinum thermocouple wire that we can recycle for you in our precious metal refinery.

But what about cold places? Don’t air conditioners contain thermocouple wire that we can process for you? Yes, they do. But before we delve into that subject, let’s consider the fundamental difference between devices that generate heat and devices that cool things off . . .

We have all been there when recently engaged young women show off their new “rocks” to friends or work colleagues. “How big is the diamond?” has been the most important question that people want to know (or are too respectful to ask) at those times. Yet a recent article in MarketWatch.com, “J-Lo’s engagement ring is reportedly worth $1 million — is it time to ditch the diamond?” implies that young people today are losing interest in how big a diamond is in an engagement ring, or what it is worth.