Crooks aren’t nice people, they hurt people, and we don’t like to write about them. But the fact remains that if we look at crime trends around the country, they can teach us some lessons about the value of precious metals. Also, because crooks make money by selling what they have stolen, their crimes tell us there is a market for the metals they are selling.

The answer may surprise you

Today, everybody you see seems to be staring at a mobile phone. About 15 years ago, every adult you saw was poking away at a Blackberry and every kid you saw was listening to music on an iPad or other portable music player.

What You Need to Know about Modern Smelting and What We Do

As we wrote on this blog back on February 24, 2014, “Smelting has now evolved into a modern, sophisticated process that uses very advanced equipment to separate precious metals from a wide variety of compounds and chemicals, not only from rocks.”

We were in an electronics store recently, where we saw a small electronic device lying next to a cash register. We asked a salesman, “What is that thing that looks like a tiny cellphone?”

We have written before on this blog about good places to hunt for undiscovered precious metals – places like old jewelry factories, wells, drain pipes, and even graveyards.

Today, we would like to add one more place to look for old gold, silver, and platinum items that you can recycle profitably . . .

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 . . .

A client of ours recently found an interesting piece of gold jewelry. It was a brooch, probably more than 100 years old, that he found in an estate sale. He bought it for $40.00, took it home, and tested it using a gold testing kit.

Although cadmium is not a precious metal, there is money to be made recycling cadmium silver contacts.  (See “Recycling Silver Cadmium Contacts Can Give You a Big Payday,” a post we published on this blog in 2016.) 

Do you invest in precious metals? Are you concerned about harming the environment?

If you answered yes to those questions, let’s start today’s post with a general observation . . .

A gold ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) is a gold-based investment you can buy as though it were a stock or mutual fund. And like those investments, you can monitor how well your ETFs are performing, and what prices they are trading for. The companies that create and sell gold ETFs buy a quantity of gold bullion and allow investors like you and me to invest in partial ownership of them. Gold ETFs offer convenience – you can call your financial consultant at Fidelity or another investment company – and say, “Buy me some shares in a gold ETF,” and you are off and running with your gold investments. And because their performance is tied to gold trading prices, it is easy to keep an eye on how well your investment is performing.

Did you know that gambling casinos typically generate a profit of about 2% on all the money that is bet in their facilities? So if $10 million is wagered in a casino in one day, they make $200,000! That explains why casino hotels are likely to offer you a cheap room to stay in, or even a free one. The more people they get through their doors, the more money they make.

Yes, there is! It’s called Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners. And although we are located in Connecticut, we are as close to you as your local Post Office, FedEx or UPS shipping office.

If you’re clearing out an electronics store or supplier, you have good opportunities to find precious metals – most often gold – in many kinds of electronic devices.

Whether you’re clearing out or cleaning up a hospital, a nursing home, a testing lab or a medical facility of a different kind, you have good opportunities to cash in on precious metals.

Medical facilities are home to many kinds of supplies and equipment that contain gold, silver, platinum and even cadmium.

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.

We have watched stories about it on Fox News and other news channels. We have read about it in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. 

What are we talking about? We are talking about the fact that flooding in California has exposed veins of gold that have been hidden for decades. Some of these hidden deposits of gold were apparently not discovered during the famous gold rush of 1849. And now, a lot of prospectors who have heard the news about a new gold rush are heading to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to pan for gold in streams. Some of them are reportedly using more than pans to look for gold; they are bringing in sophisticated equipment to look for it.

“My grandfather was a master jeweler and jewelry repairman,” a caller told us recently. “Unfortunately, he recently passed away, and now we have the job of emptying his workshop. Can you give me some advice on what we should be looking for?”

We haven’t written about drones on this blog for several years. In the time since, some things have stayed the same in the world of drones, and some things haven’t.

Is mercury a precious metal? No, but if you invest in precious metals, there are things about mercury you should understand.