I have 20lbs or so of raw sterling ingots that were melted down from scrap that I had bought and collected over 20 years ago…these are out of the pot and are not poured into rolling ingots. Some were fire refined by oxygen injection by an acetylene cutting torch… so the content may be closer to fine.
I want to unload them as they are not something I will ever use.
Does anyone know of a commercial refiner who can process them and hallmark the as fine, so that I can sell them as investment grade 1 ounce and ten ounce silver bars. I am located in western SD. The closest refiner is in Minneapolis and all of the rest are in New York City… I visit Albuquerque often so I could drop by Rio Grande… does anyone know if Rio Grande does refining, and if not, does anyone know of a reputable refiner who does electrolytic refining? The person in Minneapolis I spoke to uses fire refining which is oxygen injection… they charge 20% for their service, no matter what purity, plus shipping and insurance.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never sent any silver to a refiner. I keep hoarding it waiting for the price to skyrocket again. I’ve almost done it a number of times, but never had.
Rio Grande does refining with different deals for their various categories of customers. I don’t know if they’ll do what you want though and turn your silver into investment grade hallmarked silver bars? You’d have to ask them.
Here’s their info:
Hoover and Strong is a big refiner with a solid reputation. But again I’m not sure if they’ll do what you’re asking for with hallmarked investment bars. You’ll have to ask.
When I lived in California, I used PM West for gold and gold solder. I liked those folks a lot, but I haven’t talked to them in decades. They’re a smaller refiner, so they might be willing to do what you want. They used to host an annual symposium that I’ve been to a number of times. So I’ve toured their facilities a fair amount, but don’t remember much.
PM West
A lot of folks like David Fell & Company
There’s many refiners out there. Since you’re asking for something specific with your refining needs you’re going to have to contact them and see if they can do what you want.
thanks to all… since I’m going to Albuquerque in a couple of weeks, I can bring the raw ingots with me…if they can do it, I’ll let them… I’ll have to call ahead since dragging all of that silver in a suitcase will be a heavy extra load… I’ve done some business with Rio Grande before, but not this kind…if they can’t do it, I’ll call some of the others later… it’s not a priority at the moment…thanks to everyone for their suggestions…
PS: I bought that scrap years ago when sterling scrap was selling at around $2.50 an ounce…bought it by the pounds for a life long supply…will still come out ahead even if I get half price for the refined product at today’s spot price…at least in today’s dollars, which is only worth 10 cents when I bought it…everyone loses to inflation…
thanks to everyone…the rio grande website says that it does not do recycling except for wholesalers and businesses. so i’ll have to look elsewhere…I do know that Hoover is reputable
someone must be following this forum because I got an unsolicited call while at work this morning from someone recommending a refiner. Does anyone know who Steve Gridley is? He left me a phone number and told me to contact Garfield Refiners who offer 90% back…I can’t tell whether this is for real or a scam… I have no idea how they got my work phone number and how I was interested in unloading some raw ingots…
That’s weird that someone reached out to you at work about a forum post. I clicked on your forum name and it shows your real name. You may want to change that to a first name and an initial or something.
I’m Rio Pro through my day job, which means I’ve got a designated contact at Rio. I forwarded your original post with your question about refining to my Rio Pro contact. He said that Rio doesn’t do refining themselves. They buy scrap and send it to a refiner.
So yes, you’ll have to look elsewhere, especially since you’re looking for your metal in investment grade ingots.
I’m sure there are a lot of companies who do it, but you’re going to have to do some research.
Best of luck! 20 pounds of silver bought for $2-something an ounce. Way to go!!
I should congrantulate myelf, but the only catch is that 20 lbs of silver in 1980 dollars is only worth a tenth of what it is in today’s dollar… inflation over decades has cheapened the dollar… constant 1980 dollars would make the equivalent spot price for silver today $ 2,10 an ounce… not a great inflation hedge. Gold went as low as $200 per oz… Homestake mining (Barrick gold, the biggest gold mining company in the world) walked away from 20 million ounces of low grade reserves because they were losing money mining it…they would be mining it today if they hadn’t walked away, but costs would also have gone up…the spot price of gold hit 2K per oz, and has backed off to 1.87K, but still a 10 fold increase… bought a few Krugerrands at the same time to process into 18K gold…precious metal prices have stalled despite high inflation since they don’t earn interest, cost storage fees and have to compete with the highest interest yield in 20 years against US treasury bonds the former underground mine Homestake mine is now the National Neutrino lab today… it’s the deepest mine in the US… all of the tons of rock above it shield the lab from cosmic ray background noise. I’m getting off the topic but just wanted to let everyone know that they don’t need to be an economist or economic historian to know how bad inflation is today… all you have to do is go buy some groceries!.. Stocks have done far better over the same period of time… when the Dow Jones average hit 100 in 1981, it was a milestone… despite the recent market tumble, the DJ average is still above 33,000… a 33 fold gain…
Hoover and Strong requires a state or city business license for their services, as they are a wholesaler
Garfield is a legitimate refiner with a long history. They are in Phiadelphia, and they do buy from indiviudals, but I’m sure thier prices to individuals would be full retail rather than wholesale… I can contact them directly during business hours and not go thru whoever left me a message at my work phone number…
My request is special: I don’t want cash for the entire lot, but rather have it shipped back to me as investment grade fine silver bullion. It would be liquid and easy to sell in small lots when the silver market rebounds…I also inherited about another 20lbs or so of silver coins, mostly Mexican peso coins which are only worth the silver value… a local dealer offer to buy an ounce of a Mexican peso piece for $18 which is a decent deal with 15% off at retail, with silver being $21 at spot and it being coin silver…although the difference between coin and steriling is neglible there are some coiins with numismatic value: Morgans, uncirulated proof Kennedy half dollars and a few Eisenhower silver dollars, the latter can be very high priced…a friend of mine who is a silver bug brough a couple of raw igots to the same coin dealer for assay… he put it into somekind of machine, which my friend had no idea of how it worked…and got 80% and 60% silver on two different ingots… the problem was the flux residue on the surface… a clean surface wasn’t exposed. I will have to go there myself with an ingot that has been filed down to expose only fresh fresh metal and ask what kind of assay is being done…
There’s a final catch… all of the refiners use fire refining techniques. I mentioned previous post that for jewelry purposes, you can use an oxyacetylene cutting torch head to inject oxygen into the molten sterling and burn out all of the copper… fine silver is what is left, the flux turns brown from all of the copper oxide residue. You know you have fine fire refined silver when it “spits” when cooled… molten silver will absorb 20X its own volume of oxygen which is exsolved as large bubbles as the metal cools…hence “spitting silver” .the process is potentially dangerous and has to be done outdoors where any drops of molten metal won’t catch something on fire…metallic silver is resistant to oxidation, but some oxide is created… after pickling and removal of all the flux, there will be some residual silver oxide… that can be reduced by using flux with powdered charcoal and remelting… nearly fine silver can be poured into an ingot mold and rolled out into bezel sheet…
Chemical methods involve nitric acid and lye… the silver is dissolved, non iodized table salt is added to precipitate silver chloride, which can be in turn coverted to silver oxide by adding lye and reduced by adding an organic reducing agent such as glucose or vitamin C … this method will yield fine silver but is cumbersome, time consuming, expensive and involves toxic corrosive chemicals.
all of the refiners use fire refining. Gold is refined by chlorine injection…None do electrolytic. Electrolytic would yield the purest metal but the process is not adaptable to small lots. It also takes a lot of electricity and a long time;
I use these guys for my refining. They give a great percentage and are honest and reliable.
The take all sizes of noble metals. Rio Grande has started charging a fee, and they give a lower percentage than Midwest does.
I will need to call Midwest during working hours to ask more questions. I want to exchange raw sterling or higher silver, as some have already been fire refined by oxygen injection, for investment grade fine silver bars,
I did contact Garfield Refiners by email and their cut is the same as with Midwest.
There is a higher discount for bulk as well as for scrap silver purity. I have definitely have the bullk… 20lbs or so.
thanks, By that I am assuming that you mean that you need to be a registered business to use their services… I will be doing this as an individual as I no longer have an active TIN as a business.
That limits my scope to only a couple of refiners. I do have an option to use a local precious metal broker who I would have to pay a fee to in order for them to act as an intermediary,
PS: welcome to our forum… I hope you enjoy participating. I have long retired from hobbisty jewerly making but still contribute from the years of experience