Time to Dump the 40s Melt or sell? hmmmm.

jewelerdave · Nov 29, 2007

well I have to make a choice, I have a full box of 40s now and its just sitting there. They are ugly, dingy, and heavy. But worth a bit over 2 grand And a nice pile of 90s worth about 800.

I could keep them in the vault....or I could bury them outside somewhere, probably a park that is out of sight by a big tree...or I could send em in for melt. (dont worry, the babrbers and walkers are safe) But the Kens and bens just have to go.

melt is going to pay the best since they dont sell for crap on Ebay....Anyone got any better ideas then melt?

jewelerdave · Nov 30, 2007

I am selling them out for melt for cash, with cash I can accrue more silver and more gold, I could take gold from the refiner but I pay more than spot and take a bit on the shipping too.
I take a check back to get cash to go buy more gold, when looking hard enough I can get gold for about $40 to $75 per ounce under spot. But is always junk that has to be refined anyway. The gold we refine in house gets used up in the jewelry we produce. This expands our profit margin. We are always bringing in more silver than gold, So the excess silver gets sent off and the gold gets sold in our designs and the various castings we do for other jewelers. Its a basic business plan that just helps give us a little extra profit.
To refine silver its just not worth it on the scale we do it, we do a little silver extraction from the gold we process as its in the alloys of gold. But its a pain to deal with for a small amount. Much easier to send it too a larger processing facility that does it all the time and has a market for the recycled silver. If I did it I would have to spend several days of work doing it and have a big bar that is not recognized by any company, so it would be re refined anyway. The coin is a recognized alloy.

65gt350 · Nov 30, 2007

Dave,

Thanks for insight. I was under the impression that you were going to just ship the 40% or the 90% to the smelter, it sounds like you lump it all together with everything else and get a bulk rate on the smelting/refining. So I assume that you get paid after the process.

65GT350

jewelerdave · Nov 30, 2007

Yeah, this place has a 100 oz minimum to give you the good rate. No prob with all the 40s. so I will also send in a bunch of old sterling flat ware and other junk silver, along with nasty 90s etc. Of course I pull rare dates and BU coins for myself and to sell to others. I am expecting it to be upwards of 250 to 300 ounces of silver to be sent in. All junk or not worth dealing with, we can only use so much ourselves in our own designs and for refining ourselves via inquartation.
basically they charge a small fee per ounce of about 35 cents in coming on fine, and about $50 to process it all. So the more sent in the better the deal as it all gets melted in the same lot, and paid for in the same lot. being that silver moves up or down about 35 cents a day or more lately I really dont worry about it. And I dont want to sit on it till prices are higher because the money can be invested in other things. Why sit on something that may go up or down and you may make an extra %10 in 6 months or a year when you can make a %10 or more return on investment each month. I am about turn over.

65gt350 · Nov 30, 2007

jewelerdave said:
basically they charge a small fee per ounce of about 35 cents in coming on fine, and about $50 to process it all. So the more sent in the better the deal as it all gets melted in the same lot, and paid for in the same lot. being that silver moves up or down about 35 cents a day or more lately I really dont worry about it.

One last question if you don't mind. Is the incoming fee based on the weight coming in? For example a bag of 40% weighs ~737.5 tr oz do you pay .35 on that weight or on the actual yield of 295 oz of Ag. Either way the price you get from them is better than the buy price from AMPEX.

Thanks,
65GT350