Phantasmix Stock Market Blog

I got 2 answers in the comments – thank you both for participating.

El Guapo said $425, and llman - $325. llman, you’re a pessimist!

I probably look naive or something, ’cause after seriously intense calculations, my “handler” looked me straight in the eye and said:

$400 even.
 

Having done my own math, I questioned that number. Also got a little mad, but spoke very calmly.

They have screens with live spot quotes all around, and use Buying and Selling prices, like with the currencies. At the time Buying price in CAD$ was $34.52.*

I showed her my logic on the calculator. Including their commission, my net came to $436, but she couldn’t let me have it and rounded down to $430. If it was a bigger amount, I would’ve questioned it, but ok… whatever.

The answer: $430.

5-12% of silver is lost during smelting so I figure they made about $70-120 on this transaction.

* Selling price was around $38.40.

I had some silver laying around and thought I’d do something with it. So I split everything into piles and took it to the refinery this morning.

• sterling silver rings and settings, 312g
• sterling wire scrap from my heady days of jewelry making, 101g
• sterling jewelry with inset enamel, 104g

Total weight – approximately 517g

I really didn’t have to break it up like this. You might have to do it if you take your metal to one of the trading/middleman places.

But I went directly to a refinery. They melt everything together, to avoid checking each piece individually and then they measure the purity of this combined bar.

My stuff being weighed

Without plastic bags and a couple of magnetic pieces, total weight came to 511g. After melting, I got a 501g bar with 93.52% purity (higher than sterling because I had some 99% wire in there).

Pouring my bar. The whole melting process took 3-5 minutes at most.

How much $$$ do you think I should’ve gotten? Answer tomorrow!

Precious Metals Spot Prices

Gold is less volatile. Because silver is such a thin market (?)

Click to enlarge