see the post i just wrote above this one.
Hi,
I have been following your journey of refining strategy for your metals…I am glad you have been procrastinating on your process because the metals have increased greatly since the start of your posting (yay!)
you seem to have quite a bit…maybe, just pull the trigger and send some out under the 10K annual threshold.
at least take advantage of the current pricing on some of your inventory…income average…?
just my musings, not financial advice!
Julie
At the current price of precious metal, it will take years to evade the 10K threshold for the IRS form 8300. I don’t even have an idea of how much this big pile of metal is worth now. The price keeps rising for all metals.. Gold and silver as a store of value is unexcelled. Holding on to it and transfering it to my estate may be the best thing to do. 400 troy ounces of ugly raw sterling ingots is worth at least 25K, @ $80 per oz. The refinery will take a 20% cut if I cashed out. More if returned in investment grade ounce silver bars, which is what I really want.. In addition to ingots, I have another 5lbs of fine silver medical electrodes that are gold plated- another 73 troy ounce, at 5.8K That is only half of the silver I have to deal with. Another 25lbs in coins, Most are Mexican silver coins. However, there are many that are proof sets, worth far more than their weight in silver… A welter of Kennedy half dollars, Morgan $1 pieces, even some Third Reich silver coins. These will all have to go a coin dealer for sorting and appraisal before they can be sold. My mother was a coin collector back in the 1920’s to 60’s, I inherited this stash of coins with a zero basis. 3 troy ounces of 18K gold is another 10K…This is a HIGH QUALITY PROBLEM. (much better than low quality problem)… The spot price of gold at this writing is $4,471, silver $78.87. Gold found its floor at 4K, 4,4K seems to be the next floor. Silver had a floor of $60… now the floor is likely to be $70 at minimum. Platimum spot is at $2,305…I also have precious metals as insurance. Insurance against the weakening of the dollar, collapse of the global economy due to trade wars and a deep recession in the US, political instability which just had a quantum jump. Precious metals and its proxies, the gold mining companies comprize 5% of my total portfolio wealth.
I expect to see a pull back in the price of precious metals by 30-50%, with metals languishing for years before another tremendous burst in the price, as has been the history of the pricing of metals However, this time may be quite different. Central banks are increasing their stores of gold, selling dollar denominated assets- US treasury bonds. The US national debt growing by the deficit balance is unsustainable. All fiat money growth has is no longer sustainable. Any default on US bonds will cause the dollar to plummet in value. The fundementals of precious metals are intact. The price will only continue to rise. A 4.9K price target by the end of this year is not without reason. Silver could hit another all time high of $100. A copper shortage is also looming. The poor man’s gold is silver, the poorest man’s silver is copper. Copper is at all time high of $5.80-$5.84/lb. A pound of copper is 1/ 4 cup…Copper futures are trading at three months for $6/lb, Aluminum is another all time high at 1.60/lb… recycled soda pop cans fetch 60 cents a pound at a recycling center…All metal prices will continue to rise in the next year and beyond.
I don’t think you really a problem. People who can pay for gold and silver will pay for jewelry, The greatest value in jewelry is the craftman’s labor. Transforming a lump of gold or silver into a high quality, high beauty piece, is where the value lies. Jewelry has always been a discretionary spending item. Those who have the income will continue to buy jewerly no matter the price of the metal in it. Discerning buyers look for beauty and esthetics, not so much for the value of metal. The exception to the rule is the buyers looking for an engagement ring and wedding ring to follow. Even the poor will buy these pieces for their beloved. Money is saved by using synthetic diamonds. The value of the metal is a minscule part of the total cost.
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What you describe as a current glut on silver at the refinery level, echoes what happened when the Hunt brother’s effort to corner the market on silver drove prices to historically extreme highs (for that time).
Once the refiners began to lose a market for the refined silver, the prices for silver dropped like a rock, back to about where they started.
Just a thought, and a word of caution. I started at the bench when gold was @$75/oz. and have seen this all before in various forms.
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Agreed! I just did the math on my bread and butter rings and they use ~.2 oz sterling so my cost is now only ~$25. I’ve only raised prices $10 and still maintaining sales. I’m low level and work more on volume and sprinkle in some more “advanced” art pieces along the way. I’ll concentrate on smaller gems at Tucson this year though and put more thought into higher priced items.
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the silver glut just got started. silver futures dropped. contract and commodity basket rebalancing is on going, driving down the price of silver. I still don’t expect it to go below $60, $70 is more likely to be the floor. Gold dropped only by a little, holding at 4,450….It still doesn’t really matter than much what the price of metal is. Metal is still only a small part of a total piece of jewerly’s price. This history of dollar value of gold and silver has had wild swings to both the down and upside. A 35-50% in drop in value has been a historical average for downside swings. The Hunt brother’s attempt to corner the silver market was back by their personal fortune in oil. Silver peaked at $50 at the time, it was insane.,. the public was selling everything silver that they owned. Family heirlooms were melted down. Antique silver was melted down. Even silver plated metal was scavenged for silver. The market crashed when Hunts oil fortune was exhausted. The Hunts went bankrupt. A century earlier, Jim Fisk and Jay Gould also attempted a gold corner. Jay Gould lost a fortune also. But as one of the wealthiest man of his time, he managed to survive- barely… This time around, I’m not sure that history will repeat itself. The fundemental economic forces are eroding fiat paper money. The US dollar is declining. In the 1960’s a dollar then is only worth a dime today. The cumulative effect of a 4% inflation average rate from 1960 to the present, has eroded a dollar to a dime. In addition, the US currency is backed by the “full faith and credit of the United States Goverment”… we live in strange economic and political times. Neither blue nor red administrations have addressed the unsustainably growing national debt. Each administration runs a new record deficit, added to the national debt. Every person, every corporation could provide free labor, free services, free goods for a year and a half to pay off the national debt. I don’t see that there is any political will to fix our problems. This growing debt is self compounding- more dollars are borrowed to finance the interest on the debt. The credibility in the credit and faith of our country is being undermined. Other paper money currencies have the same problem but to a lesser extent. Only Japan is in worse shape. The Euro has appreciated against the dollar by 10% over the last 1.5 years. I never was a gold bug until I realized that gold is insurance against an dollar catastrophe.
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the mixed metal work that I before retiring, was silver wires, gold wires, brass wires, copper leaves, shot of any metal. These were painstaking applique’d upon a base of silver or gold, sometimes copper. the leaves were graven with a central stem and veins. tendrils of a different colored metal, shot groups appliqued together. Working with mixed metals is a trial and error process. Becareful when you used mixed metals, as when heated to solder them together, some metals react with each other, lower the melting point and create their own solder. Brass with a high zinc content is the worst. However if done with careful heating, brass on siliver will create its own solder and stick to silver with only flux. I really like the results of different color metals within a single ring with a single stone. Using copper as a base and applying precious metals in the form of thin wire, shot, leaves will save a lot of money on the precious metals. Fabrication with a lot of soldering will produce very attractive results.
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You have to have been around a long time to remember gold at $75/oz. I bought sterling silver cuttings from native american jewelers who were selling in bulk. the price was $2.50/oz. I could save money by melting down the cuttings, pour into a mold and roll into sheet and wire, instead of buying them from a supplier. As long as the cuttings were clean and uncontaminated with steel fragments (these could be draw out with a magnet) remelting the old material and recycling it save me a lot of money when compared buying sheet and wire from a supplier. Even fine silver can be made from sterling scrap. By using an oxyacetylene torch for steel and iron work, a cutting torch head can be used to inject oxygen into a high temperature sterling melt. The oxygen reacts and burns out the copper. Silver won’t oxidize, but it does absorb up to 20X its volume with oxygen when pure. As the metal cools, oxygen bubbles form and are exsolved from the molten silver. “Spitting silver” is fine silver. This technique is called “fire refining”. The silver that comes from this process is not 0.999 fine, but it’s still fine and soft enough to easily shape bezels when using it.
I usually buy small pieces of silver to make things, as the pieces that I am making might require different gauges. With the increased price of silver, I have been weighing the pieces of silver and wondering how to price it; I know that the shop that I buy it from will be charging much more than $130 per ounce ( I am in Canada). I asked one shop what they charged per ounce for silver, and they told me that they sold it by the foot, not the ounce. Any ideas on this?
You can check the price on Rio Grande’s website which shows the weight of whatever length you select and then compare that to the shop you usually buy from to see how close or far off your shop’s prices are with Rio’s. You may have to do this only once or twice.
Emily, re-reading my earlier post, it isn’t as clear as it should have been.
You could check Rio’s site by weight (as if you were going to buy one troy ounce of 20 ga. square wire, for example) and see what length of 20 ga square wire you’d get. Then check the same length at your local supplier, which should weigh the same as Rio’s, and you will know what they charge for one troy ounce.
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Thanks Neil. I will try that.
you are quite right about that- 60% of silver’s use IS industrial. Solar panels, electronics all use silver. Silver is an unsurpassed electrical and heat conductor. Only diamond conducts heat better. The AI build out infrastructure is pushing the industrial demand for silver sky high. Jewerly consumption is at about 20%, a stable percentage of annually mined silver for the last decade. The remaining 20% goes into silver coins, bullion and collectables. All of this has been completely overturned in the market. Investment demand, “safe haven demand” has exceeded jewerly demand, cutting into industrial demand. Since this thread was first posted, the silver and gold run are continuing.
What a lovely and thoughtful response. Thank you Rob. I guess I’m a hobby business as well and agree with your father’s viewpoint. Use the replacement price. I visited your website to enjoy your style. I appreciate your staying true to your roots. I, found that working with copper gave me a clear understanding of the value of time and experience vs. the cost of materials. I diverged from what was my usual when I found fold forming is great for my mental health. In silver, it is stunning, and in copper, also stunning. The copper affords me some freedom from affordability fears.
I’m still enjoying some material that has aged along with me, because as a 27yo when silver was less, I splurged. Now 78, I’m amused with the ‘leftovers’ that are still great as the day they were purchased.
My scrap is more precious, and I watch the price.
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Rather than selling your scrap, have it refined and trade it for fresh metal to work with. We save a ton of money by refining ours.
Who would you recommend for refining bench sweepings that contain silver but aren’t primarily silver?
I send bench sweeps, swarf from my polishing hood, dried sludge from my grinding bench and clean scrap to Hoover and Strong. You should talk to them first to make sure that they will take it. The refining sector seems to be a bit out of sorts with the volatility of silver right now. You have to set up an account with Hoover and Strong and complete their chain of custody documents. This is likely true of most refiners. Other refiners that I have used include Elemetal and Rio Grand. I like Jo’s suggestion of getting the scrap value back in clean metal and may try that the next time that I have enough scrap to make it worth while. Good luck…Rob
I’m considering using Elemetal as a refiner. Rio Grande doesn’t do refining themselves- it’s sent out. What are the commission/fees for Elemetal? The closest Elemetal refiner is 400 miles away in Denver. As mentioned previous, I a lot of raw ingots from melting silver scrap. My prefered way of return payment is for it to have returned as investment grade fine bullion or fine silver coins. That will definitely cost more.
Gold has found a floor of 5K. Silver dropped to $70 and rebounded to over $80. The US budget deficit and growing national debt has kept gold high. Geopolitical tensions and growing slow devaluation of the dollar, inconsistent trade and economic policy are also contributing to high price of gold. Silver is much more volatile, subject to big swings in price. High prices for precious metals are here to stay. I’ve invest a large amount of money in gold stocks to avoid paying the 28% capital gains rate on physical gold. Up 20% at 5K… watch prices once a week…here’s an AI generated projection of jewelry sales:
projected for 2025-2026:
The global jewelry market is projected to grow steadily through 2025 and 2026, with total valuations estimated between
$242 billion and $384 billion. While gold continues to dominate the market by revenue share, silver jewelry is expected to see faster growth in volume as consumers seek affordable alternatives to record-high gold prices.
IMARC Group +3
Market Projections (2025–2026)
| Category | 2025 Estimated Sales | 2026 Projected Sales | Growth Trend (CAGR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Jewelry | $242.79B – $384.2B | $254.13B – $397.72B | 4.8% – 8.7% |
| Gold Jewelry | $184.85B – $286.15B | ~$269.43B | 2.5% – 8.7% |
| Silver Jewelry | $42.81B – $51.61B | $54.04B | 4.7% – 5.4% |
Key Trends & Drivers
-
Gold Market Resilience: Gold remains the top revenue generator, accounting for roughly 55% to 60% of total market value. However, record-high gold prices—projected by some analysts to reach between $4,500 and $6,000 per ounce in 2026—are putting pressure on consumer margins.
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Silver as “Affordable Luxury”: The silver segment is poised for steady expansion, often acting as a substitute for gold in the mid-market. Sterling silver currently dominates this niche with a 70% market share.
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Regional Dominance: The Asia-Pacific region, led by China and India, holds the largest market share (approx. 40%–60%), driven by strong cultural traditions for gold and a rising middle class.
-
Product Preferences: Rings are the leading product segment, representing roughly 34% of global sales, largely due to the evergreen wedding and bridal markets.
-
Digital Shift: Online jewelry sales are expected to grow at a faster rate than offline channels (approx. 8% CAGR), with digital platforms projected to account for 25% of all transactions by the end of 2026.
Grand View Research +7
Economic Factors
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K-Shaped Recovery: Higher-income households continue to drive luxury and investment-grade jewelry sales, while lower-to-middle-income consumers are becoming more selective due to inflation.
-
Supply Concerns: Silver is facing its sixth consecutive year of market deficit in 2026, which may support higher price levels despite cooling demand in some industrial sectors.
United Consumer Financial Services +2
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Consumers are adjusting to higher prices. Has anyone seen a drop is sales so far?