How To Make Money In Precious Metal Recycling


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I got started in the recycling business when I was unemployed and was travleing around, I had plenty of opportunity to visit the kinds of places out here in the West that people only go through on their way to somewhere else. Since I was doing road trips every two weeks or so and would be gone for three to four days at a time, I would take some down time and stop in these little towns. There I would call on the town dentist, usually with pretty good (and profitable) results.

Remember, this was some years ago when there was a LOT MORE competition for scrap due to higher metal prices. Many of the larger refineries on each coast were sending their reps out as “professional buyers” – essentially just what I was doing in the film business. Obviously, it was an expensive proposition to have someone earning a salary and traveling full-time – the cost in overhead is tremendous. NOBODY can afford to hire people to do this today, so there is almost NO competition for this business.

Nonetheless, I stopped one day in small town in Montana. I got a pretty warm reception from the town dentist when I told him I pay CASH for scrap gold and amalgam. He pulled a box out of a drawer which was FILLED with shiny yellow gold. Since I had no competition and he obviously was reluctant to package his scrap and risk mailing it to a refiner besides the tax implications of receiving a large check for it), he was very happy with my (admittedly low) CASH offer!

Lessons One and Two: I have yet to see an efficient “professional buyer” of ANY type of scrap. They are getting paid for results which means buying in quantity, which means going where the biggest and most numerous accounts are located. Even then, they use a ‘shotgun’ approach. Secondly, whoever shows up with cash in hand first gets the scrap. The people you buy from want CASH, not the bother of mailing or shipping their scrap materials to a buyer who “may” send them a check. Regardless of the amount of scrap they have, it is but a small percentage of their business – it is GRAVY to them!

… back to our story. After having made a deal for his gold and amalgam (worth about $350 in profit alone), the doc asked if I refined metals. I told him no, but that I had access to some excellent refiners. He said for me to wait a minute, and went into a back room. Out he came, and in his hands was a Mason jar, apparently full of dirt. By the way he was holding it both hands, it was obviously much heavier than ordinary dirt!

He explained to me that his father, and,as I recall, his grandfather as well, were dentists in small- town Montana when it was still a territory. He proceeded to tell me some the history of dentistry, of how (before the days of suction pumps and vacuum cleaners) various gold refiners would actually ship sisal floor mats to dentists free of charge. The dentist would put these floor mats down in the operatories to capture the gold and silver filings from the patients’ mouth. The old low-speed drills would generate pretty good amounts of gold and silver dust and filings, most of which was either inhaled by the patient or ended up in the floor mats. Sisal was pretty efficient at capturing these metals. The refiners would send replacement mats to the dentist who would then ship the ‘old’ mats back. The refiners would burn the mats to recover the metals and make a token payment to the dentist – a wonderful symbiotic relationship!

Regardless, this jar, upon closer scrutiny, was full of dirt – and metal filings. The good doctor told me he’d had this jar of floor sweepings in his office for many decades. In fact, it dated back to the times when the refiners still provided floor mats for dental offices! These were the sweepings which were not captured by the mats. The jar weighed about four pounds, and it was impossible to tell from looking at it if there was anything in it worth messing with. I told him I’d be glad to take to my refiner and get it assayed. I had earned his trust and nothing was said about
refining costs, percentage of recovery, or any aspect of returning the values to him. Simply, “take it and let me know how much it is worth, take your fair share, and bring me the money next time you’re in the area”.

Frankly, when I got back to Utah, I set it on a shelf for a couple of weeks before doing anything with it. I thought it probably had some metals, mostly silver, and wasn’t worth much, so no hurry! I finally took it to my refiner and asked him to melt it and get an assay. Final score: dirt – 40%; metals – 60%. The metals were silver and gold. The gold ran almost 18K (75% pure gold) and the jar yielded almost a pound of pure gold!

I took away $1,327 in profit (this is not counting the other scrap I’d already bought from him) for spending no more than twenty minutes in his office earning his trust. He was VERY happy getting a few thousand $$$ for a jar of DIRT sitting on a shelf.

Unusual? Yes.

But I learned lessons Three and Four in my recycling education: The ‘deals ‘ are where you find them. If you are not out there, they will NOT come to you.

Also, it is amazing how much business is done informally, with no more than a handshake. The trust you earn is your greatest asset in this, as well as any business you enter into.

Since those early years I have many eye-opening experiences along these lines. I had a retired dentist call me who had two five-gallon plastic buckets FULL of gold he’d saved over his lengthy career. He would call me once a year when he’d need to sell ten or fifteen ounces of his hoard to pay taxes. I came upon a farmer whose barn was filled with nearly 10,000 catalytic converters; a scrap yard with over five thousand; I’ve had people offer me all kinds of scrap materials with only the promise of future payment.

Does it happen frequently?

No. But it happens enough that it makes your life like a constant treasure hunt – you get up in the morning excited about what you may find today! And, believe me, the excitement and anticipation never seem to end!

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