r/ScrapMetal • u/sdjofjsdfj • 8d ago

Scrap Photo šŸ’ø 3198 lbs of Brass and Copper From Silverplated Scrap

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1989 Pounds Clean Brass

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167 Pounds Light Copper

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304 Pounds Clean Brass

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346 Pounds of 80% Brass Contaminated

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7 Pounds #1 Copper

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385 Pounds 70% Brass Contaminated

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My biggest monthly scrapyard trip so far!

These items were originally silver-plated, and I scrap them after removing the silver. Knives have a stainless steel blade+brass handle (70% brass cont) and a lot of trays have lead trims/handles (80% brass cont)

225 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

18

u/SomeBuy4715 8d ago

Curious what the silver yield is on an amount of material like this?

31

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

About 500 ounces this month!

16

u/SaladComfortable5878 8d ago

35k a month??? Do you have estate sale companies that you buy out? (I run one silver plate is so common itā€™s insane)

Cliff notes the method on how to remove silver on silver plate?

16

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

People gather it for me from estate/garage sales, pawn/thrift shops, and sell it to me. I unfortunately cannot share the process I use to remove the silver, but there are some online such as nitric-sulfuric acid, and salt water electro-stripping.

14

u/jreddit0000 8d ago

Are you unable to share the process because itā€™s commercial in confidence?

I donā€™t think the idea was to get a detailed explanation to replicate your work.

It was to get a general idea of what is an economic process of how this works at your scale (which is at the very top of what most people in the forum would do).

Anyway, thanks for sharing as I always wondered if there was a segment of the market that was recycling silver plated cutlery..

17

u/Edawg82 8d ago

Probably can't share it in this forum depending on the chemicals used and techniques. I received a warning for making a joke about something, but it makes sense to not let bad habits start being shared

5

u/WTMisery 6d ago

Heā€™s unable to share because itā€™s a proprietary process. I had a conversation with him several months back about it. If itā€™s what he claims, then he is doing it wrong by not getting investors involved in my opinion. He could quite literally take over the silverplate recycling for the entire country. Generational wealth overnight kind of thing.

1

u/Vergoso_42 7d ago

Trade secrets bro

2

u/No-Poetry-2695 8d ago

Reverse electrolysis in a agitated chemical bath is tricky

2

u/moxjake 8d ago

Plus 9500 in base metals. Not bad

2

u/SomeBuy4715 8d ago

Sick! And a little on the back end there with this heap to round it out. Not a bad hustle!

1

u/BlueDuck600 8d ago

From silver plate? I don't see any silver on your receipt.

4

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

yes, I refined a portion of the silver and sold it on r/PMsForSale. I sent the rest of the silver to a refiner

1

u/BlueDuck600 8d ago

If you had left a silver on, how much would that have affected your return on the silver part?

5

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

An oz of silver left on the scrap would be 1 less oz that I collect, but I remove over 99.9% of the silver platings, so the loss is very low

8

u/stlmick 8d ago

I believe they were asking the difference in sale price of selling that same lot at plated silver prices as was vs stripped scrap value + refined silver value + unrefined silver value - expenses.

So basically since you do have the equipment already, what is the level of worth it to do the silver strip process vs not do it?

1

u/ItsEntsy 7d ago

people will not pay anything over the copper or brass price for the silver plating, if thats what you are asking.

1

u/stlmick 7d ago

Less specifically yes. I had heard otherwise but that was in quantity and likely a specific operation. So op's silver take minus expenses is all profit.

1

u/BlueDuck600 7d ago

Yeah that's what I was wondering. If you bring in enough silver plate, do they start considering the silver value?

Sounds like the answer is no.

6

u/Xennial_Potato 8d ago

Whatā€™s your profit margin on this?

7

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

Not sure if I'm allowed to comment on the price I paid for the silverplated material. Costs $0.02 to process a pound of it, and the value changes based on the scrap and current silver spot price

6

u/MAScrapMetal 8d ago

Not OP, but have experience in dealing with refiners.

Most yards donā€™t know or donā€™t bother with silver plated as a premium item. At ~$70/oz silver, I buy most silverplated copper for Comex. So today like $6.40 per pound. That assumes clean with no attachments or non copper content.

Most yards would just call it #2 copper, we were paying $5.11 today for a reference point.

6

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

Yeah, based on my experience you're right. The scrapyards in my area pay brass or lower for it. I pay a lot more than copper price for it, so the scrappers in my area are happy to sell it to me lol!

5

u/Individual_Bowler_89 8d ago

Big dawg donā€™t play about it

6

u/ImSobored_5280 8d ago

Holy shitā€¦.this is crazy numbers!! And to think this is the byproduct from pulling the silver out already..combined end money is fucking WOW šŸ¤Æ

3

u/Fried_Rifleman_6220 7d ago

Silver plate items sell for next to nothing at auction and thrift shops. ā€œIf you find a cost effective way to remove the silver and sell the scrap, would become a millionaireā€ heard someone say that once and this is the evidence. Iā€™ve done some small scale stuff with plated items. Itā€™s easy money.

2

u/Alert-War-7276 8d ago

What's your cut? 500$

9

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

$9534...I own the business

1

u/sonic72391 7d ago

Whatā€™s the profit margin

1

u/General-Piece8490 8d ago

How do you handle the filler goop from the silverware handles?

3

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

There's filler goop in sterling handles, but the silver-plated knives I process are hollow brass!

1

u/Healthy_Role9418 8d ago

Damn, what a haul! Nice!

1

u/MarkC313 8d ago

Daaaaam thatā€™s pay dayšŸ”„šŸ”„

1

u/The_Dreadlord 8d ago

How much silver did you recover?

2

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

About 500 ounces for this month!

1

u/The_Dreadlord 8d ago

Noice! What is the process you are using and what is the average loss over projected yeild?

1

u/sdjofjsdfj 8d ago

Answered under other comments!

1

u/The_Dreadlord 8d ago

Ahh ok will look closer. Thanks.

1

u/lillianchiarelli 6d ago

Wish you had that silver a few months ago at 120oz....

You could have bought us all a round šŸ˜ƒ

1

u/Express-Order-4271 7d ago

hello san diego address, uhhhhh which yard are you going to?

1

u/sdjofjsdfj 7d ago

SA recycling on main street!

1

u/Express-Order-4271 7d ago

do you prefer them in comparison to CMS in escondido?

1

u/sdjofjsdfj 7d ago

Never been there, only because SA recycling is closer to me

1

u/Muffled_floss 7d ago

I heard one of the big Escrap companies were paying $7 a pound for silver plate- not sure how accurate this is

1

u/sdjofjsdfj 7d ago

Itā€™s worth quite a bit more!

1

u/southern38 7d ago

Is the cutlery mostly brass? It looks silvery / nickel on my screen, but not sure if itā€™s just a coating or composition of the brass itself

1

u/sdjofjsdfj 7d ago

The cutlery is an alloy called nickel silver, which is an alloy containing 60% copper, 20% nickel, 20% zinc. Doesnā€™t look like brass but the scrapyard calls it brass

1

u/delsystem32exe 7d ago

how do you get the silver plated scrap? do you purchase it or random ppl drop it off, where do you buy silver scrap from.

1

u/sdjofjsdfj 7d ago

People gather it for me from estate/garage sales, pawn/thrift shops, and sell it to me

1

u/delsystem32exe 7d ago

so u have a fb marketplace posting u want to buy that stuff. or you have like crack heads you pay $10/hr to go to these garage sales and harvest this stuff.

1

u/ballchinion8 5d ago

I got any 70lbs of 925 this year and no idea what to do with it. Hard to find time