Watch your smelter!

[Goldstein]

Hi -
in (nearly) every town exist shops who collect silver, people want to get rid of (or need some money), for the smelter. They pay only the current daily silver price per gramm and silver content (750, 800, 875, 900 etc.). I am each time shocked when I see how high-quality, valuable family silver is destroyed for just the melting rate. This silver is permanently lost for future generations. Whenever I have the time I visit this shop and search his different boxes. Here my last find:




We all know what it is!

click to enlarge

If you have shops like that near you - please visit them and rescue some silver from the destruction!!!!!

[amena]

Once upon a time there was a smelter that buys silver to the melting rate and sold it with a reasonable mark-up.
Sometimes he gave me a piece in exchange of the same weight of scrap, or a little more.
Today the smelter itself sells silver to 6.5 times what it pays. The tale is over.
Rescue some silver from destruction becomes rather costly.

[Goldstein]

Hi amena -
who pay for ordinary, massproduced silver 6.5 times more than what it pays? To stay with your example: the shown Khlebnikov spoon weighs 26 g (Gramm). 1 g scrap silver is rewarded with EUR 0.40. 26 X 0.40 = EUR 10.40 plus what the dealer want (nomaly he doubbles the price - in my case EUR 20.80). In your example: EUR 10.40 X 6.5 = EUR 67.60 Really not bad for a large Khlebnikov dining spoon out of a certain pattern. I would buy it at once!

Mods
Please do not delete. This is not talking about money - just some math. theory....

[Aguest]

About to be melted, literally, this piece was about to be picked up by the representative of the smelter company when I flew into a rage, 1 ounce of pure gold or around 58 grams of 14k gold here:



Etruscan revival watch fob, USA circa 1870, a few links have been re-attached but really why should this piece be melted down?

The pawn shops and coin shops must meet payroll and expenses and IRS tax bills, so they often melt down pieces that should be saved.
Give the shops your phone number and beg them to call you rather than melt these pieces down, please people, I beg of you, all around the world, please help stop the melting of historical and aesthetically pleasing pieces of gold and silver, even a simple spoon should not be incinerated!!!!

[Goldstein]

Hi aguest -
near where I live there are several smelters I routinely go to see. While searching their barrels and crates where they "store" the silver I can watch who is selling - mostly young people who have absolute no interest in silver. This silver they have inherited from their parents or grandparents - who took it to the bombshelters, took it with them on the flight from the Red Army, did not exchange it for food and cigarettes after the war - just to preseve it as family heirloom for the next generation. And this generation squender it for some Euros - not really knowing what they do.