Sterling Silver Flatware Brands and Marks to Watch For

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.

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Are Gold Prices about to Rebound? And What Should You Do if they Are?

We are in the business of recycling gold from a number of sources. We work with gold scrap, electrical devices, old jewelry and even ore and sand.  What is our best advice about what you should do today if you have recyclable gold-bearing materials – perhaps materials that you have been holding until gold prices increase?

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Three Easy-to-Overlook Sources of Silver Scrap

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.

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Lock in Future Precious Metal Price Increases Today . . .

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.

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Do Hybrid Cars Have Catalytic Converters? Your Questions about Cats in Cars Answered

If you’re interested in collecting and recycling catalytic converters for a profit, the arrival of all these high-tech vehicles can get confusing. Which of them contain cat converters, and which don’t?

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How to Buy Underpriced Silver at Estate and Home Sales

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.

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Lock in Future Silver Price Increases Today . . .

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.

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Contrarian Investing – Why Aren’t More People Turning to Gold Right Now?

On Monday, July 20, 2015, the financial markets got a jolt when the trading price of gold in Asia suddenly plummeted to a five-year low. The impact was felt globally. Half the world away in London, the price fell 2% on news of the Asian price drop. One celebrity investment expert, CNBC’s Jim Cramer, got on air only hours later and advised people to buy gold at its low price, as a “hedge against inflation.” That’s traditional wisdom about buying gold and other precious metals – investors should buy and hold as a hedge against inflation. It’s good advice, but it makes us wonder why so few investment experts are recommending buying gold at low prices and then selling it when prices rise.

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Lock in Future Gold Price Increases Today . . .

If you have been waiting to recycle or sell your gold 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 gold when prices rise in the future.

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Adding Value to Your Silver: What You Need to Know about Niello

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.

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Why Stuff that Doesn’t Glitter Could Be Platinum

Although platinum doesn’t rust or oxidize, it can discolor after it is exposed to high heat in laboratories. That bluish patina can be deceiving. You look at a discolored piece of thermocouple wire or a testing crucible or a stand that was used in the lab and think, “this discolored stuff can’t possibly be platinum.” The discolorations that affect used platinum mesh or sponge can be even more deceiving. They can be reduced to a blackish powder that you’d be tempted to sweep up and toss away.

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Get Wired! How to Unravel Big Dollars from Wires Made of Gold, Platinum and other Precious Metals

If you’re emptying an old factory that produced products that contained metals, chances are good that you will discover wire that contains precious metals.  You might find coils of it in storage areas. You might find little rolls of it hiding in drawers. Unless the previous owners labeled their supplies carefully or the wire is still in its original packaging, you have very little way of knowing what kind of wire you have.

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Three Shady Precious Metal Scams You Should Know About

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.

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How to Make Money Recycling Medical Scrap

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Valuable and precious metals are used in many medical devices. But before we explain where those metals are used, let’s answer this question: Where can you buy scrapped medical devices? The short answer to that question is, it can be difficult to obtain large quantities of used medical devices… Still, it is possible to obtain and recycle quantities of some medical devices that can offer you a good return on your investment if you send them to us to be recycled. Let’s take a closer look.

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New Restaurant Technologies Rely on Thermocouples You Can Recycle for Cash

In the larger restaurants where so many of us eat today – the chains that have the same restaurants that we see whether we are driving near Atlanta, Los Angeles or Boston – most of the food is prepared in an entirely new way.  Partially or completely prepared frozen entrees arrive from central production facilities that resemble factories, not kitchens.  And when those meals arrive, they are stored in freezers and then prepared quickly, using high-tech restaurant equipment.

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Three Reasons Smart Platinum Investors Are Making a Fortune Today

Many platinum investors are frozen in place today. Although they own scrapped catalytic converters, old lab testing vessels and other items that contain platinum, they are waiting until platinum prices increase before cashing in. Meanwhile, smart platinum investors are cashing in. Like other contrarian investors, they are moving ahead instead of staying fixated on just one factor as a sign of when to sell. Here are three compelling reasons why this is a great time to recycle platinum today instead of waiting...

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5,200 Anglo-Saxon Coins Found with a Metal Detector Go on Display in London

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:

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Cash in Today on Huge Stocks of Scrapped Catalytic Converters

This could be the best time ever to start a business collecting catalytic converters and sending them to Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners to be recycled. One thing for certain is that someone will be cashing in on the platinum, palladium, rhodium, cerium, manganese, and nickel that all those scrapped converters contain. If you are motivated to get a piece of the action, that someone could be you. Would starting a company to collect and recycle catalytic converters be a good career choice for you? Here are some steps that can help you decide.

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