Just a thought

[beauanderos]

Was just wondering. Considering the number of fake coins and bars that are starting to show up... how does a smelter know what he is taking in
from the public? Do they have some kind of industrial-sized silver verification authenticator? Otherwise, the .999 they derive could have some degree
of impurities in it... or would the different metals separate somehow? Inquiring minds want to know.... Market Harmony... calling Market Harmony.

[natsb88]

Kinda blurring a few things together here.

Smelting is the process of refining a metal from the raw ore. Smelters take silver ore from miners and make 999 or 9999 or whatever product is needed. Smelting doesn't typically involve a whole lot of post-consumer metal, as you would be taking a few steps back by tossing 999 or 925 or whatever into the pot with raw ore. Why send that stuff through the extra steps involved in smelting when it only needs to be refined.

Refining is taking less than pure metal (but only metal, not rocks or whatever might come in with ore) and purifying it to a desired level. i.e. sterling to 999 silver, scrap gold to 9999, or whatever. If a refiner accidentally tossed a fake in the pot, it would come out through the regular refining process anyway. Refiners have strict quality control, so even if they were melting a pot of what was supposed to be all 999 silver (which would rarely happen), they would be testing it and refining as needed.

Simple melters like myself take 999 silver, melt it, and pour it into new shapes. The 999 could be freshly refined shot from a refiner, or it could be post-consumer bars and rounds. This is where you would have the biggest risk of an issue, and why it's important to buy from melters who know what they are doing and have a reputation to uphold, rather than a fly-by-night eBay seller who might make pretty bars but doesn't have any legitimate brand to uphold. It should be fairly apparent when melting on this scale if something wasn't silver, but that's not to say it couldn't happen, or that somebody couldn't contaminate a crucible or mold and then put out very-slightly-less-than-999 products after that.

[beauanderos]

Kinda blurring a few things together here.

Smelting is the process of refining a metal from the raw ore. Smelters take silver ore from miners and make 999 or 9999 or whatever product is needed. Smelting doesn't typically involve a whole lot of post-consumer metal, as you would be taking a few steps back by tossing 999 or 925 or whatever into the pot with raw ore. Why send that stuff through the extra steps involved in smelting when it only needs to be refined.

Refining is taking less than pure metal (but only metal, not rocks or whatever might come in with ore) and purifying it to a desired level. i.e. sterling to 999 silver, scrap gold to 9999, or whatever. If a refiner accidentally tossed a fake in the pot, it would come out through the regular refining process anyway. Refiners have strict quality control, so even if they were melting a pot of what was supposed to be all 999 silver (which would rarely happen), they would be testing it and refining as needed.

Simple melters like myself take 999 silver, melt it, and pour it into new shapes. The 999 could be freshly refined shot from a refiner, or it could be post-consumer bars and rounds. This is where you would have the biggest risk of an issue, and why it's important to buy from melters who know what they are doing and have a reputation to uphold, rather than a fly-by-night eBay seller who might make pretty bars but doesn't have any legitimate brand to uphold. It should be fairly apparent when melting on this scale if something wasn't silver, but that's not to say it couldn't happen, or that somebody couldn't contaminate a crucible or mold and then put out very-slightly-less-than-999 products after that.

[Morsecode]

Yes, excellent answer.

[silverstacker]

Thanks for that answer. I learned a lot here

[beauanderos]

not sure if my original question was answered. Paraphrasing... do Refiners have a method of testing the bulk silver that they are receiving from secondary sources? If (unknowingly) a seller submits a batch that contains a considerable amount of counterfeit product, and the refiner then processes this (melting, refining, etc)... how do they compensate the seller? Do they routinely issue payment based on the expected percentage of silver alledgedly contained and shoulder all the risk? Or do they wait until a batch is processed and then pay them based upon the result? "Sorry, Pal, but when we melted your stuff, it turned out to be mostly fakes. Here's 30% of what you were expecting."

[68Camaro]

On the TV shows they melt each batch separately and do an immediate assay, pay out accordingly.

[TwoPenniesEarned]

Beauanderos,

Refiners pay for what (allegedly) comes out of the process, not what goes in. You have be careful in picking your refiner to ensure they won't take too much. A good friend of mine that frequently sends junk silver and gold to be melted told me that as a small guy without a relationship with the refiner I should expect as much as 10% to disappear in the process.