Should You Sell Gold Jewelry to a Walk-In Store or Recycle It with Us?
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 . . .
Tiny Gold Scraps You Should Not Overlook
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.
What Is Sterling Platinum?
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?
Is There a Safe Way to Hunt for Precious Metals in Old Wells?
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.
Don’t Give Precious Metals Away when Recycling Scrap
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.
The Story of “Arsenic Avenue” Highlights the Dangers of Exposure to Chemicals Left Behind by Gold Processing
“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 Sputtering Targets Your Best Buy in Platinum Scrap Today?
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.
Will Cheap Plating Liquids Make It Harder to Recognize Gold and Silver Items?
In years past, it was relatively difficult to plate a bright, shiny new layer of gold or silver onto other items. To do it, you had to either immerse the items to be plated in a plating tank or, in some cases, use an electrified plating brush to apply a thin new layer of gold or silver.
Why the Smartest Places to Hide Gold, Silver and Platinum Might Not Be So Smart at All
Have you ever shopped online for miniature safes and other “safe spots” where you can hide gold, silver, platinum and other small valuables in your home?
If you have, you know that the variety of products you will discover is nothing short of amazing. When we did some online shopping recently, here are some of the products we discovered . . .
Golden Phonograph Records – Do They Exist, and Where Are They?
Way back in 1977, NASA launched its Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Both of them are now about 14 billion miles from Earth and, incredibly, both are still communicating scientific data back to NASA.
How to Avoid Being Fooled when You Go Looking for Gold
You go looking for gold and . . . you find some! Maybe you go to an antique store and find a piece of jewelry that looks like pure, shiny gold, but you find out later that it is only covered with a thin gold plating. Or you discover a gold nugget and find out that it is only a cheap collectible that has been created to look like the real thing, but isn’t.
Can You Recycle Items that Have Gold or Silver Appliqués? What Are They Worth?
What is an appliqué? It is a small decorative piece of silver or gold that is applied to another metal. The word appliqué is French, meaning “applied.” (An appliqué is also a piece of fabric that is sewn onto a garment as a decoration, but that is not the kind of appliqué we are writing about in today’s post.)
Some Common Misconceptions about White Gold
Gold is a yellow metal, right? So how does it get turned into white gold?
That is a common question about white gold. We’ll answer it in today’s post, along with some others.
Why Expert Silver Recyclers Have Specialized Skills No One Else Does
Alchemists were medieval scientists who, legend says, were able to turn base metals into gold. Of course they couldn’t do that. Still, some of their discoveries are still being used today. One is aqua regia, a combination of nitric and hydrochloric acid that is still used today to dissolve gold and platinum.
How to Inventory Your Precious Metals
What kind of precious metals do you own? Bullion bars or coins? A mixed collection of jewelry items you have picked up at tag sales and estate sales? A garage full of catalytic converters? A batch of old computers?
Don’t Be Fooled . . . Sometimes “Gold,” “Silver” and “Platinum” Are Only Adjectives
We recently found a bottle of “Platinum” skin cream on a shelf at a pharmacy store.
“Wow,” we thought, “they’re using platinum in skin cream?” But when we scanned a list of the ingredients that the cream contained, we learned that it did not contain platinum, only a bunch of chemicals, plant extracts, aromas, and coloring agents. But platinum? No.
Computer Scrap Is Everywhere . . . Here’s How to Turn It into Cash
It’s no secret that vast numbers of computers are being discarded. According to some estimates, one million pounds of old computers are tossed out every year.
Where to Find Gold and Platinum in Air Conditioners and Air Conditioning Systems
“I’ve got a stack of old air conditioners,” a caller told us recently. “They contain precious metals that you can extract and recycle for me, right?”
Nine Places to Find Precious Metals in Your Home
If you want to spend a day hunting for precious metal discoveries, you could visit antique stores, dumpsters, your town dump, or an abandoned factory.
Can You Save Time and Money by Using Acids to Refine Gold, Silver and Platinum?
Let’s say that you have an old gold-plated set of silver tableware. As you know, the gold that the set contains is worth much more than the silver. Can’t you throw everything into a tub of some kind of chemical that will dissolve the silver and leave only the gold behind in solid form?