We would like to tell you a story that illustrates the fact that you could make a lot of money, simply by recycling quantities of gold, silver and platinum that could be hiding in plain sight in companies that manufacture or repair jewelry, dental appliances, silverware, or other common products. 

People are collecting folding pocket knives, hunting knives, highly stylized custom knives crafted by skilled artisans, ancient knives, and knives that fall into other niches. The question is, do any of them contain silver or gold? The short answer is yes, they do and if you take a close look at an unusual knife, it could contain small decorations and “extras” that are made of silver or even gold or platinum. 

If you’ve spent any time poking around antique stores, estate sales, or online, you already know that liquor flasks are not hard to find. That must be because in years past, many “gentlemen” and “gentlewomen” carried them on their persons, along with pocket watches, pocket knives, silver toothpicks, combs and other accessories that have gone out of vogue today.

If your parents, grandparents or other family elders are downsizing or moving into adult living communities, this could be a good time to talk to them about the silverware, jewelry and other precious metal items they own. Why talk to them today? Consider these reasons...

Over the last century, all kinds of media – for audio recording, video recording and the recording of still images – have consistently been replaced by new media that have been better in one way or another. And every time something new hit the marketplace, large quantities of the old “stuff” got tossed away, got sold at discount prices, or was snapped up by collectors. So, where can you find silver in obsolete media?

Here’s a video that shows how a new robot that Apple designed can pull apart an iPhone and separate out its parts. For reasons we do not know, Apple named this robot Liam. According to Apple, just one Liam robot can recycle 1.2 million iPhones a year.

Is every company that deals with precious metals honest? We wish that they all were but sadly, that is not the case. Here are a few scams you should know about.

“Precious metals and rare earth element are the same thing, right?”
 Let’s clear up this misconception right away. No, precious metals and rare earths are not the same. In today’s post, we’ll find out what the difference is

When you consider those traits side by side – beauty, softness and a tendency to tarnish – it explains why silver has often been used to fashion handles for a variety of objects that you should be on the lookout for when you go hunting for precious metals in house sales, antique stores or estate sales. You will only rarely find knives with silver blades, for example, they wouldn’t hold up well. But you will find many of these objects...

You could try to perform those operations yourself by burning old electronic components or other metal-bearing materials at home or – preferably – in an outdoor setting where poisonous fumes are released into the air. But we cannot state strongly enough that by doing so, you can poison yourself and release noxious gases into the atmosphere. 

Shakespeare once wrote, “All that glitters is not gold.” If he had thought about it, he could have written something similar about silver, platinum, rhodium, and other precious metals. The fact is that some shiny things that look like they should be worth a lot of money really aren’t. They either don’t contain any precious metals at all or they contain such small quantities that there is no point sending them to a qualified precious metals refinery like Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners, because the cost of extracting those metals will be greater than the value of the metals themselves.

We’re going to crawl out on a limb today and state our opinion that karat gold jewelry scrap is probably the biggest and best source of recyclable gold. Why do we think that? Because you don’t have to go panning in the Yukon to find jewelry scrap or (in most cases) hike around fields with a metal detector. Karat jewelry gold scrap is a lot easier to find than that, as the following stories illustrate. 

Do you have a quantity of jewelry pieces – findings, bits of chain, clasps or pins, perhaps – that you suspect might be valuable karat gold jewelry scrap? Or how about an old coin or piece of bullion that might, or might not, be pure karat gold?

Many people who collect precious metals fail to recognize platinum when they see it. They come across an old ring or other white metal item at an estate sale or antique store, assume that it is made of silver, and pass it by. With platinum trading at about $1,000/oz. at the time of this post, and silver at only about $16, that is a very costly mistake to make. Let’s take a look at some of the common misconceptions about platinum that could cause you to miss it.

Have you stopped to think how rare discoveries like those are, and how much more likely it is that you will discover quantities of precious metals in powders, shavings, sludge and other stuff that doesn’t look valuable? In other words, the crud that you will find lying around in old businesses and factories? If you don’t know where money can be found in crud, we will tell you in today’s post.

If you ask most people how a catalytic converter works, they’ll say, “Dirty exhaust from your car’s engine goes in one side and cleaner exhaust goes out the other side. The exhaust gases then go through the muffler and leave the car via the exhaust pipe. That’s pretty accurate, but it lacks some of the subtler information about what really happens in your car’s catalytic converter. It also doesn’t explain what the recyclable precious metals that catalytic converters contain are, or where you can find them. Well, there's nothing like a video...

If you’ve visited an art gallery that specializes in antique photographs, you’ve noticed that some of the most beautiful on display are “Silver Gelatin Prints.” They tend to be large and show stunning black and white images that have remarkable shadings of dark and light. You also might have noticed that the most valuable were taken by famous historical photographers like Ansel Adams and Alfred Steiglitz. How can you make money investing in old prints like those? Here’s what you need to know

Today’s post is a bit different from others that you have read on this blog in the past. We’re not going to focus on precious metal investments that you can make today. Instead, we’re going to take a long-term look at trends in space exploration and aeronautics that you should be aware of – trends that could reshape the world of precious metals in the future.

Yes, the deadline for filing your 2015 tax return has come and gone. But before you take a deep breath and move on, why not take stock of tax lessons you learned last month, talk about them with your tax preparer or attorney, and make some decisions right now about how you are going to deal with your precious metals holdings when next April rolls around?

It took a long time, but this month VW and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached an agreement to compensate owners of VW 2.0 diesels or to repair or buy back their affected cars. So, what does the new agreement mean for you if you collect and recycle catalytic converters for a profit? Although full details of the agreement have not yet been announced, here are some issues to keep in mind if you are hoping that the agreement could yield a windfall in available converters.