How to Refine Your Scrap Silver and Gold

© GeltDesigns 2009 All rights reserved.

You've been making your own jewelry and now you have a collection of silver, gold filled and gold scrap metal. The clippings leftover from your wire jewelry, the sheet metal cut away when you sawed out your design, the clasp and ear wire from your childhood jewelry that broke have all accumulated and are sitting in a box. The pieces are too small to use in another project. You can turn these scraps into cash. Even the smallest piece of silver or gold can be collected, refined and made back into useable precious metal. This tutorial will tell you how to refine your silver and gold scrap, protect the environment and turn your leftovers into money to use on your next jewelry project.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• scrap metal (gold scrap, silver scrap, platinum scrap)
• packing materials

1. Collect your leftover precious metals for refining. Put the scrap silver, gold and gold fill in separate containers. Ziplock plastic bags work well. Try to keep the scrap as clean as possible.

2. Scrap that is collected from bench sweepings and scrap that has solder on it can be refined as "dirty scrap," but dirty scrap should be separated from your "clean scrap" (metal that is not contaminated).

3. Weigh your clean scrap.

4. Place each type of scrap back into its own sealed container after weighing. Mark each container with the type of metal, estimated metal purity (e.g. fine or sterling silver; 14kt or 18kt gold) and the weight.

5. Repeat with dirty scrap adding the label "dirty scrap."

6. Package each clearly labeled container for shipping. Be sure to ship with a tracking number in case the shipment is misplaced. If you are shipping a large amount of scrap, you may also want to include insurance for the estimated value of your scrap.

7. Most refiners ask you to complete a form describing your shipment and how you would like to receive credit or payment. Contact your refiner before shipping requesting the form they use and informing them that you will be shipping your scrap.

8. Most refiners calculate scrap value based on the market value at the time the scrap is processed and not the date the metals are shipped or received by the refiner. So contact the refiner for specific information once you receive word the package was received.

9. Note that refiners will often pay more for customers using credit against new goods. So it is often a better value to choose a refiner who sells goods that you use frequently or currently need.

Tips & Warnings

• Cleaning your scrap, melting scrap into small pieces and clearly labeling different types of scrap will usually speed up the refining process and speed up your payment.

• Not all gold refiners and silver refiners deal directly with the public. If you have a relationship with a company that sells jewelry supplies, check with that company to see if they will accept silver scrap or gold scrap.

• Rio Grande is a popular company that sells jewelry supplies to the general public that will buy back scrap. They can be reached at 1-800-545-6566

• Refiners pay different percentages of market value for goods. Some refiners have a minimum amount. Refiners scrap policies may change with fluctuation in precious metal prices. Comparing policies of refiners on the date you ship will save you money.

• Gold recovery includes old jewelry. Selling gold jewelry for gold refining is a great way to recycle jewelry you no longer wear. Many gold refiners will pay cash for gold jewelry (in fact that is the basis for the currently popular "gold parties").

• Precious metal refining includes dental gold.

• Precious metal prices vary with the metals market. Although the gold market has been high recently, gold prices are always subject to change.

Resources

• GeltDesigns
• eHow Going Green Guide