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I have 7.7 silver from developing negatives in printing, how much would this bring if I took it to refine? – Trisha in Pittsburg, KS

Hi Trisha,

If am not sure if your silver is from a silver recovery unit and is in pounds or ounces. Let’s assume it is silver flake from an electrolytic silver recovery unit, in this case it may be very rich in silver content by weight. We can refine it and return 75%-90% of the silver value back to you via check depending on the actual quantity and quality. If you would like us to test a sample please let us know.

We are clearing out our office and realized we still have about 160 pounds worth of old negatives from our monthly publication. Wonder if these are worth recycling? – Dixie in Berkeley, CA

Hi Dixie,

The amount of negatives you have is not enough for us to pay you for them. This is because the cost for us to extract the silver is more than what the precious metal would be worth. We will gladly recycle them but you would have to pay the shipping charges to get them to our facility.

I have quite a few silver coins: 33 quarters and 39 half dollars. I’ve been watching silver prices and thought now would be a good time to sell these. How much are these silver coins worth refined? – Terri in Carrollton, Texas

Hi Terri,

You’re right, silver prices are at an all time high and now would be an ideal time to add a little extra money to your pocketbook when you’re ready to sell. The first thing to look at is if your coins are “junk silver” coins where the silver content is worth more than their numismatic value. The most common quarters and half dollars we see at Arch are as follows:

• (1932-1964) Washington Quarter
• (1916-1947) Liberty Half Dollar
• (1948-1963) Franklin Half Dollar
• (1964) Kennedy Half Dollar
• (1965-1970) Kennedy Half Dollar
• (1920-1967) Canadian Quarter
• (1920-1967) Canadian Half Dollar

If your silver coins are in-fact junk silver and you have 33 quarters and 39 half dollars we would estimate their melt value to be $258 per pound based on a silver price of $17.75/troy ounce. We will retain a small 10% fee of the $258.

Is there an easy way to determine if my gold necklace is real gold or gold plated? – Magen in Chesterfield, MO

There are many plating materials out there that make an item look like gold or silver. If you are questioning what type of metal you have there are a few things that may help determine if your item is solid and “real” without damaging the item.

• Check for a hallmark. However, you must be careful because sometimes sellers can be deceiving in making buyers think they are getting solid gold or silver with a hallmark when in fact, it is a counterfeit.
• Run a magnet over the items. Neither gold nor silver attract to magnets. If the magnet sticks to the item, without question it is NOT “real” gold or silver and probably contains very little of the precious metal.
• Gold in its purist form is actually soft and will bend when squeezed in your hand. Alloying it with other stronger, less expensive metals makes it harder.

If you try these methods and still do not have answers it may be time to take your items to a professional. There are acid tests that can be administered, however they involve making small cuts or incisions into items and working with acids can be a dangerous and difficult process. Refineries have the necessary instruments to measure the amount of precious metal in an item.

I have a 51 piece 24K gold plated flatware set that is supposed to contain 63 pieces (I’m missing 12 salad forks.) If it were a full set, it’s only going for about $50 on E-Bay. It is not marked 24K, but the certificate included with the set states they guarantee it to be so. So let’s just assume this to be true. Would I be better off to sell this online for $40 or $50 or sell it as gold scrap? Thanks. – Mark in Las Vegas, Nevada

Gold Plated Flatware

Hi Mark:

Unfortunately, plated gold flatware typically only contains a microscopic layer of gold. In most cases, the flatware is plated so thinly that it costs more in energy and time to remove the gold than the gold is worth. Therefore, most precious metal refiners cannot offer payment for gold plated items.

However, the value of your flatware depends greatly on the metal underneath the gold plating. In some cases, manufacturers plated the gold over sterling silver. If your set is gold on sterling silver, the set should be worth more than $50.00 for the silver value (market price of silver and weight depending). If they are gold plate on stainless or copper or another base metal you are best to sell them on ebay.

To give you a feel for the melt value, we buy sterling silver by weight and pay around $175 a pound at this time.* If you want to determine what metal is under the gold plating, you can send us one piece to test in our XRF analytical lab to determine if it is silver underneath the gold or you might be able to dig up some information by calling/writing the manufacturer.

You can see how the XRF machine works Arch Enterprises Video Site.

* Price reflects the price of silver when this blog article was published and my not reflect the current price of silver, which changes daily.