Dummies Guide to EASY silver bullion refining at home as a long term precious metal investment

So does this process work for other coins that may have additional additives beyond copper such as nickel, tin, and other alloys or metals?

As well what are some other coins that are suited very well for this process? I am wondering about coinage easily attainable in North America that is cheaper than face value, i.e. american and canadian coins?

This was an excellent description of a process I never understood.

Can't emphasize enough the potential for long term profit by buying
and hording silver. About 4 years ago I had some spare money, and
bought a small amount of silver bullion coin. .9999

Friends were skeptical.

In 3 years the value doubled. That equals to 33% + increase in value
each year. Try and get that from a bank's saving account or CD.

I think it prudent for all of us to have at least a hundred ounces of
silver put away for a rainy day. More if you have the scoots.

Today a hundred ounces of silver would be over $3,000. It won't buy
you a car, but sure could help feed the family if our US Dollar collapses.

Anyway I gave you a Star and a Flag. Much appreciated, and
eagerly await your Gold process.

Originally posted by Benchkey
I think it prudent for all of us to have at least a hundred ounces of
silver put away for a rainy day. More if you have the scoots.

Today a hundred ounces of silver would be over $3,000. It won't buy
you a car, but sure could help feed the family if our US Dollar collapses.

Not to mention that the $3000 you spend on that 100 ounces today could be worth a freakin fortune in future if the value of silver is ever allowed to go uncontrolled by the banking elite to its natural price which could be up around $100 per ounce in 5-10 years and maybe an order of magnitude higher than that in 15-20 years.

A $3000 purchase today for a 100 onces of silver could be a young mans easy retirement savings plan...

i was in Value village 2 days ago and asked my buddy that we should by this old silver junk and melt it down and get some extra cash, problem was i didnt no how to do it, he replied "well, you wont get nothing for it or everyone would be doing it," thats as far as the interest went. until your post today, im pumped, im going to do it. Also i play a online video game called EVE, space explorartion, and in the game you reprocess asteroids to get the raw materials and then get cash to buy, of course guns and ammo, i thought, i spend hours a day playing this game i should b out doing this for real. now i can.. thanks bro awsome post, you have got to do the gold also.

reply to post by tauristercus


I may have missed the answer to the question about what you do with the remaining chemical mixture.

If you've already replied and I missed the answer, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to post it again seeing as I don't want to do anything that would contaminate the environment.

So, how do you dispose of the acid when you're done with it?
Thanks in advance.

Can someone please explain to me where i've gone wrong with this calculation, it just doesn't seem right.

The OP bought a half kilo bag of coins for $20 AUS dollars. This translates to 13.53 GBP with an exchange rate of 0.676373.

The coins in the half kilo bag the coins are 50% silver. So there is approximately 250g of silver in the bag. Essentially the OP bought 250g of silver for £13.5...

Well according to this website: www.gold-traders.co.uk... silver is worth roughly 0.58p for fine silver at about 99.9%.
So 250g x 0.58p = 145. Surely the OP cannot have made £145 from £13?!

I have to have gone wrong somewhere and the fact i can't see where i've gone wrong is making me feel like an idiot.
Anybody?!

Originally posted by Maarhuis
i was in Value village 2 days ago and asked my buddy that we should by this old silver junk and melt it down and get some extra cash, problem was i didnt no how to do it, he replied "well, you wont get nothing for it or everyone would be doing it," thats as far as the interest went. until your post today, im pumped, im going to do it. Also i play a online video game called EVE, space explorartion, and in the game you reprocess asteroids to get the raw materials and then get cash to buy, of course guns and ammo, i thought, i spend hours a day playing this game i should b out doing this for real. now i can.. thanks bro awsome post, you have got to do the gold also.

And the best part is you don't have to worry about pirates sending you back home in your pod!

Will this process work to retrieve silver from xray film???
I am looking for silver products cause I am wanting to try this process.
My wife is getting nervous and has hidden the silverware.

reply to post by Kingofthehill


You're not too far wrong.. I haven't checked how right you are though, but you're not far off exact.

Check here;
silver price per kilo

You will see silver is currently (at time of posting) 679.53 GBP per kilo.

So, had he bought two kilos of coins and extracted the half the silver from them, then he would have 679.53 GBP of silver sat on his table.

I have an 85 gramme silver bracelet and took it to city centre jewelers this morning for an estimate on high street scrap buying... I was offered 14 GBP for it.
If it was to be melted down and sold to a bullion dealer, then the price would be significantly different, less bullion dealers cut.

Effectively, I could double my monwey on the bracelet if it was in a purer state, so to speak.

The only problem is finding someone to buy your new silver.. It seems bullion dealers are the way to go, but you either need enough of the stuff or a regular supply for some of them to take an interest.. not only that but your silver/gold has to be good.. For example, they might give you less cash if the silver has to be refined further..

Apparently there is a chemical colouring scale to test for purity of metals.. which I'll be looking up shortly, and this scale defines purity..

reply to post by hanyak69


If i'm correct, the amount of silver used in photographic film would be minimal.. along the lines of an item that has been silver plated.. the layer of silver would be thinner than wafer thin and you'd need a heck of a load of film in order to extract any amount of silver from it.

reply to post by tauristercus


DUDE!!! You are the man......I am starting TODAY!!!!

reply to post by tauristercus


Dude, if I ordered those items and tried this at home, I would end up in Guantanamo Zoo

I mentioned above about the chemical test ...

Here is a very nice little site to visit that will give you a really good, quick guide to what's involved..
They also provide a few prices for equipment and stuff.. from the chemicals themselves to the 15,000 GBP handheld testers

www.quicktest.co.uk...

reply to post by Extralien


Using the price per kilo to work out the price per gram from that link, it works out to 0.68126 per gram. which is better than the other site offered, but the other site is working to make a profit.

So this means that using this whole process to extract the silver and then sell it off is extremely profitable.

I wouldn't know of any buyers to sell the bullions/buttons to around where i live, but there are plenty of websites (like the one i previously linked) that you can post to and they'll post you back money.

What i want to know is, why isn't everyone doing this?!
This makes me think that we have to have gone wrong somewhere because it's a simply process that produces a lot of money...

reply to post by Kingofthehill

I must admit since reading this thread I've been doing a little searching here and there.

In answer to your question the problem appears to be getting access to enough reasonably priced scrap that there is any profit left to do the scrapping. From what I can see 15 euros an ounce seems to be about the going rate for scrapped silver. Some people are asking more than 15 euros for 30 grams of scrap. Even if I don't count my time, it still won't leave any money over for me. Unless I'm missing something fundamental...

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


So we can establish that the process is cost effective, IF one is able to find the items containing silver in the first place in bulk for cheap.

I've done a quick ebay search, and you're right, it is very hard to find coins with a good silver content for a good price. When i do the calculations the money made seems to work out at the same price of the coins price.

So, maybe like the OP said, we would just need to look out for good deals.
Regardless, the knowledge is useful, and if one was ever to come across old coins for free or at an auction etc, this would be a very useful way to make money from them.

I've had no luck trying to find a propane blowtorch for less than £55 in the UK, a price I'm not willing to pay.

Has anyone else managed to find a cheap propane blowtorch available in the UK?

reply to post by Scope and a Beam


Check this out and see if you can get one from this site.
www.nextag.com...

Here's another site:
www.harborfreight.com...

Originally posted by ANNED

Originally posted by hawkiye
Great thread and thanks for posting it! Some questions. What if the silver is mixed with other metals beside just copper will the same procedure work? Also what about circuit boards is it worth the trouble and will the non metallic parts of the board be a problem or is that a whole different procedure?

Look forward to your tutorial in refining Gold.

Computer boards are not worth it in small amounts but back when i was mining we use to run computer board through the mill along with the gold ore and use it to improve the grade of low grade ores.
Computer boards are soft compared to the quartz that gold is found in and we ground up both to around salt size and ran it across a jig table and then took the concentrate and ground it to flour size with a small amount of mercury to collect the gold and silver.


Computer boards run about a ounce of gold per ton except for boards like old IBM mainframe boards that may run 2 to 3 ounces per ton gold and there is a good silver content and a small amount of platinum in some.

Thanks for the reply that is what I was thinking probably not worth it unless you have access to tons of the stuff and a place to process it.

With regards to getting your bullion sold, be careful who you choose to smelt all your buttons of silver..

There is a company on ebay in the UK that charges 100 GBP per kilo
www.ebay.co.uk...

But then you still need to get the bar 'assayed'... in other words, hallmarked...

Cut out the middle man and check out the price list from the goldsmiths company in london..
They smelt silver up to 9kg for 30 GBP...
www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk...

Then of course they test your metal and hallmark accordingly
Ata price, of course.. but very possibly cheaper than elsewhere..