New source for gold.

[Greymatter Glass]

http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi?getReferrer=http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/mint18.html

99.999% pure gold Buffalo coins. yay.

[prairieson]

And with a price at least $70 - $150/oz more than the current price of gold I'm guessing it's not such a great source for our use.

[alacrity024]

i actually may be able to bring something to the table here..


i have a line on a pretty much unlimited supply of scrap gold at a really good price. once i figure it out a little better, i would probably be willing to pass that savings along to gldg peeps. however i have a few questions..

24 karat seems to be the "purest" but the lesser grades are generally just gold combined with silver, so would lesser grades of gold still technically work? i've done exactly zero work with gold and only a little with silver, so i don't know too much about the details..

the melting point of gold is just below 2,000 degrees farenheit.. i'm not sure if my kiln can hit 2k yet as i've not been able to ramp it up to full temp due to wiring drama.. hopefully that will be sorted out before long but what i'm wondering is: if i CAN get my kiln to hit 2,000 can i melt scrap gold into molds or something so it's a manageable shape? what would i use for molds?

[Greymatter Glass]

Use your torch and a fused silica or graphite dish to melt the gold.

If you use a ceramic dish make sure to "glaze" the surface contacting the gold with boric acid flux or the gold will fuse to the ceramic.

When you melt gold use a neutral flame (no reduction) and flux it well with boric acid.

Then take the ingot to any metal supplier that has a touch stone and get your purity tested.

As for sub-24K gold, it's not always, or usually, alloyed with JUST silver. In coin gold there's usually some nickel and/or copper, and in any colored gold there's always other metals. The only gold I know of alloyed with only silver is 18k yellow gold, and even then depending on what source it's from it might have copper in it.

...anyways don't bother melting gold in your kiln, it's messy work- you have to pack the crucible in a metal can full of reed charcoal....

why not just use the scrap gold as it is? for fuming you only need the tinist chunk you can work with.


as for a markup, I dont know where you got $70-150 markup. _ALL_ gold in _ANY_ form always contains a markup. Usually 2-5% depending on what's done to the gold. Finished gold jewelry can have a markup of over 1000%. The price is tied to the gold market. If gold is at 550 an oz then the coins will be around $600. When you buy a Krugrand, or a maple leaf, or gold bezel wire, or gold sheet or any form of gold you pay a milling fee and markup.

The _ONLY_ way to get gold at the "going rate" that's reported twice a day is if you're buying and selling TONS of gold, not ounces. A friend of mine who works for a jewelry supplier can get a 500oz price break that's still 1.5% markup from the daily spot price.

The absolute best way to buy gold for fuming is in the form of casting grain (or scrap if it's garunteed 24K).

Still... I know a lot of people use coin gold, so I figured I'd post this up here. As an added bonus you could probably find a way to market the fact that you're using the gold form the new coins in your product.

[Brian Newman]

If you do have a mix of gold and silver, and silver has a lower boiling temperature...

[alacrity024]

well i can get scrap 24kt for hella cheap. i know this for fact. i thought it would be nice to melt it into a managable shape (maybe small bars) but you're right, it's fairly unnecessary. once i get things squared away i'll post a thread.. i imagine i'd want to do a minimum order though, just so i'm not spending my time packing and shipping a quarter ounce of scrap gold to a million people..

[J Howard]

good info, i'll add mine:

if you can get it easily, or relatively cheap, buy your gold in wire form. i bought my last 22kt that way, and really like it. i still have a pure 24kt maple leaf coin i'm still hacking at so i haven't tried to get that in wire form to try out. the 24kt i use for inside out, or anything that will get encased, while the 22kt i prefer unencased. the two are a little different in color and both really nice. don't go lower than 22 though

i like to use the wire because i think you get the best "slice". i can get the perfect amount by nipping the wire, and i feel like the gold lasts twice as long when the slice is just the right size (probably due to not dropping off) while this might be annecdotal, i truly feel it's worth the extra couple bucks to get it in this form if that's true. if it's not, it's at least hella convenient to use!

[mindblowingglass]

I found that gold leaf worked good for that reason. No rolling off the glass, and real easy to get the proper ammount. Not the stuff that comes in a "packet" rather the stuff they use to paint gold accents with.(comes in a bag or jar) If you can find it , it too is worth the extra $ if you can locate it.

[J Howard]

hey,

speaking of gold leaf, i made this replacement chandelier part for a 1930's venetian piece. long story short, for the life of me i cant get the leaf to look like the soft glass, it' keeps going pink for how i need it to look (can't do a Cesare styled roll up/sleeve encasement for this one either). so, i bought some 5 min epoxy, mix it up, add a little leaf to get the gold fleck matched to the original, and paint it on. dead ringer for the soft glass!

[chris ecklund]

Forget the hassle of shipping. Think about the money. If you sold and shipped a half ounce to one million people... ...sounds like retirement to me. How about this, send it all to me, I'll ship it all, and well split the $$$$. Hook it up man.

[alacrity024]

alright well it turns out that i have a great source for lesser grades of gold, which doesn't really do us much good. but i looked into how easy it would be to refine it to 24k myself and here's what i found:

http://shorinternational.com/RefineStart.htm

you can basically get into gold refining for about $600. scrap 14 and 10 karat gold is mad cheap and you could just turn the stuff into 24 karat all day long and probably make fuckin' bank....... dunno if i have the time to deal with it, but somebody might..