With the economy in the shape it’s in, we get calls from people asking some pretty strange questions. Every week, we get asked if we buy other metals, or if we just deal in gold. The answer is that we don’t buy aluminum cans or old copper wire, and we don’t do much with silver, either. (When you consider the difference between $18 an ounce versus $1200 an ounce, you can understand why.) But if something is made of gold, we are interested. However, there needs to be a substantial gold component, or the processing doesn’t justify the value received.

Things We Do Buy

Of course, gold jewelry is the biggest portion of our business. We also buy some gold coins, but that isn’t really something we specialize in. We really are recyclers of gold, not speculators. But anything that is made of gold is fair game.

We have purchased the filings and grindings that are left over from the jewelry making process. We have also bought some of the sprues and other little odds and ends that are cut off after a piece of jewelry is removed from the mold. We have dealt with some amateur jewelers who have rings and whatnot that they never finished, and now the gold is worth more than when they bought it.

Even old dental gold has value.

Another source of gold can be old dental work. This week we dealt with a family that was cleaning out the home after their mother had died. Tucked away in a drawer were four old crowns – with the teeth still in them! When they called to ask if we would buy them, we said we would – but asked that they get a pair of pliers and try to remove all the ‘extra material’ that wasn’t gold. When we met, there was only one that still had the old filling still in it. A little judicious pressure applied from a pair of pliers, and all we had left was four little pieces of 18 karat gold. Of course, crowns aren’t all that big or heavy – who would want that much weight in their mouth? – but we were still able to give them $90 dollars. Even though the wife thought it was a little creepy, who would throw $90 dollars in the trash?

Things We Don’t Buy

We once received a call from a business that had 1100 computer chips. Each of the prongs on each chip was plated in gold. Unfortunately, the advancements in manufacturing technology means that they can get by with less and less gold in their products, so the amount of gold in each chip was only worth a few cents. Compared to some of the older Pentium processors – which had about $10 of gold per chip – the cost to grind them down and extract the gold was prohibitive.

This week, we had a lady show up with 6 gold plated spoons and forks. Unfortunately, gold plated products are also not worth the trouble to try to extract the gold. Once everything is melted down, the percentage of gold makes processing cost prohibitive.

Keep Your Eyes Open For Sources of Scrap Gold

Bottom line – gold is gold, and it’s worth money. While we might scratch our heads sometimes, we will try to work with you to figure out if what you have is valuable. If not, well, you haven’t lost much. And who knows? You might stumble on something that has real value.

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