...Most of the garments date from the Chinese Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), which was established by none other than the Mongolian conqueror Kublai Khan. That’s a long time ago, but isn’t it still possible to find antique items of clothing that are woven with gold – or maybe with silver or other precious metals? Here’s some information you should know when you go looking for precious metals in antique clothing. 

Gold, platinum, palladium, rhodium and the precious metals are trading for much higher prices per ounce than silver. But does that mean that you should write off silver as a profitable investment metal? Not at all. Here are some pretty compelling reasons why you could make more money in silver than you can with more glamorous precious metals.

Findings are small, pre-manufactured metal items that are used in jewelry production. Chances are pretty good that as you read this post, some of them are right there in the room with you. If you bought a nice silver chain to give your niece for a present, for example, open the box and take a look at it. You’ll see that there is a small ring attached to one end, and some kind of clasp to the other. Those add-on pieces are findings. 

We’ve published posts in the past about why recycling gold is socially responsible. Recycled gold doesn’t have to be mined, and mining pollutes air and water and burns fossil fuels. And then there’s the fact that recycled gold is not dug from the earth by underpaid, exploited workers. Of course, it is possible that the gold that we recycle from computer motherboards, old jewelry and other sources does have a “dirty” past – because gold doesn’t have DNA, it is impossible to know whether it originally came from a mine in Africa or from ancient amulets that were stolen from the Aztecs. But even if that is the case, the gold that we recycle today is generations removed from any dirty sources and less closely linked to environmental or societal ills. 

We’ve written about sputtering targets in the past, but a few recent calls made us think that this would be a good time to remind our readers that most used sputtering targets still contain precious metals that are worth extracting.

Last year we published a list of the most popular blog posts that we ran in 2014 – the ones that had been viewed by the most people and that had generated the greatest number of comments. We’ve created a different list of best posts this year. They are posts that contain the kind of useful information that can quickly put a lot of money in your pocket – maybe even in time for the holidays. 

We’ve already written about pink gold, rose gold, white gold, and even green gold on the Specialty Metals blog. (See related posts below.) We thought we’d seen just about every color, then we found an article entitled “What Can Make a Piece of Gold Turn Blue?” that Esther Inglis-Arkell wrote for io9.com. 

Recycling precious metals often involves analyzing and refining big messy batches of mixed materials. People who own these mixed lots of material know that gold or silver or platinum is “in there” somewhere, but don’t know where it is, what it is, or how much of it is present. 

We don’t have a crystal ball that lets us see what precious metals you now own – either in bullion, in materials that you haven’t yet recycled or elsewhere - but we’re willing to guess that most of your metals investments fall into the mid-term category that FINRA defines: you’re going to have them for between three and 10 years, so they should be investments that offer stable long-term growth.

If you forgot to do any spring cleaning, these energizing autumn days can be a good time to get going. If you do, there is a pretty good chance that you’ll discover some items that will provide you with a bigger payback than you realize. Here are some items that are lying around my house. Odds are pretty good that they can be recycled very profitably by a top precious metals refinery like Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners. 

Be aware that if you find even one spoon or fork from one of these prestigious makers, your discovery could be worth a lot of money to silver dealers, individuals whose sets are missing the item that you found, or as sterling silver that we can recycle for you.

Silver might not be worth a lot of money per ounce – it is trading for a little less than $15.00 right now. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a lot of money trading it. The key is to collect large quantities of the metal at below-market prices and then call Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners at 800-426-2344 to discuss your recycling options.

It’s overwhelming. How are you going to figure out what you have and what it is worth? How will you know when the right time comes to sell it? Should you wait until prices hit the right levels, and how will you know when that happens? And while you’re trying to answer those questions, you do nothing.

Experienced silver-hunters tell us that they find much more silver at home sales than they find in antique malls, where everything has been picked over by antique dealers or estate sale specialists. If you’re lucky, you may stumble onto entire boxed sets of sterling silver tableware – you might even find an heirloom set of Old English silver.

If you have been waiting to recycle or sell silver until trading prices rise, we invite you to consider a Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners Pool Account.  Our Pool Account offers significant benefits, including the ability to sell your silver when prices rise in the future.

You have probably seen niello without knowing what it was. It looks like black enamel that has been painted into the indentations around geometric patterns on the surface of decorative silver belt buckles, goblets, candlesticks and other objects. But niello isn’t paint. It is actually a compound made of silver, sulphur and other chemicals.

If you called a precious metals refinery for an over-the-phone appraisal, you would be pretty excited to hear the words, “Your scrap could be worth an awful lot of money.” And you should be happy. The problem is, those words could lure you into one of the precious metal scams that are happening today.

If you happen to be in London this week, I’d urge you to visit the British Museum. A treasure of 5,200 coins found by a man named Paul Coleman has just gone on display there. Mr. Coleman isn’t a coin collector exactly. He’s a hobbyist who found the coins last year with his metal detector in Lenborough, a small town north of London. The coins were buried in a lead container, probably in the 11th century. They are made of silver and show images of two kings named Ethelred II and Canute. Read more:

When you send us old catalytic converters, sputtering targets, dental scrap or other items to be processed, we recover precious metals from them that were mined from the earth years ago. Those same metals will then be reused in new applications that can include jewelry making, medical technologies, electronics manufacturing, and many more. What could be more efficient?

If you go shopping at antique malls or estate sales, you will discover a number of items for sale that are made of gray metal. How can you tell if they are made of silver, white gold or platinum?