I sent some dental gold, some 18 carat gold and some 10 carat
gold. Their settlement statement lumped everything together so I do
not know what they paid for each type of gold. I would have liked
to see it broken down by category with the prices for each
Their website clearly states that they do not issue a report or
payment based solely on quick scans or tests, which is what you’d
need them to do if you wanted breakdowns on each piece. It is totally
uneconomical for them to refine each seperate quality or type
individually. Unless you specifically asked for this, they would
normally lump all the metal together, and refine it as a single lot.
They thus never attempted to obtain seperate qualities and values
for each type.
That, by the way, would normally be the practice with most refiners.
By contrast, simple gold buyers who are not actually refiners, would
be the ones testing each piece and calculating individual values for
each item or type. And since they then have to sell the scrap to an
actual refiner, while still staying in business, they’ll pay less
than an actual refiner, who pays based on actual recovered metal, can
do.
I recently sent in a bunch of scrap myself, to United Precious
metals. Bench filings and polishings, which are slower and more
complex to refine than more solid metals, so it took them two and a
half weeks. (suggesting your one week turnaround was good) I had no
problems with communications, as they are easy to reach and quick and
responsive in communication. Their settlement report also lumps all
of it together, as I’d expect. I’m very satisfied with their
service, and will happily use them again, when next I have enough to
send in. I especially like that they offer to provide insurance on
incoming packages, so that you’re free to ship valuable metals via
simple fedex overnight or 3 day, etc, without fussing with fedex’s
normal restrictions on insuring the value of such material. Very
handy for those who don’t already have their own seperate high value
shipping insurance arranged through their own jewelers block policy
or similar.
I’ve also used several other refiners in the past, including David
Fell, and Hoover and Strong, and both of them use much the same
practices of lumping refining types together. There will be
exceptions, of course if you send different scrap types that need to
be processed differently, such as sending gold scrap seperately from
platinum or silver scrap, or a seperated bunch of gold jewelry with
stones to be removed… But in any case, if you need seperate
reports for individual lots sent at the same time, be sure to
arrange for that before the refiner starts work on your lot.
Peter Rowe