Sorry Anne,
I did not specify the type of material I was working on. Here,
the most popular is 22k for plain gold jewellery followed by 18k
for gemsets. I work mostly 22k and mind you, “two bags full” of
polishing dust, recovered, yield about 200gms fine. Ain’t that
value enuf?
Joseph Chin,
@Joseph_Chin
On the subject of “polishing dust”. I recall a photo in National
Geographic of a man in India panning the gutter down the street
from a jewelry shop to collect what might be swept out the door.
Anne, You won’t get much for silver, but you will get something.
Call a refiner and tell them what you have and they will tell you
when you have enough to make it worth sending. We work only in
gold and are paid $80.00 a lb. for our polishing dust and $7.00 a
dwt. for our bench sweeps. I cant imagine not sending in your
dust. But its only money.
Mark P.
Yeah, Street urchins around these parts do it too. Penang &
Butterworth across the channel is the jewellery manufacturing
centre for the whole of Malaysia. You can find, practically a
couple of thousand small workshops operating out of residential
areas (much like in Italy and the US). There are however small,
medium and large factories too, all located in designated
industrial zones.
Joseph Chin.