My budding stack

[Bullionstu]

OK so some of you may remember I had a quantity of junk I'd fished out of the river and storm drains over the past 18 months. 

I chopped it all in and bought some 'proper' gold

I used plus gold in birmingham as I found their prices really good. Also pictured are two pairs of 18ct gold cufflinks i bought at the boot fair for 3 pounds lol!

I've kept the rings that are 18 & 22ct as it didn't make sense to pay the premium on selling and buying for a few ct.

 

We also find hundreds of old mobile phones in the rivers around the UK and I had my first pop at refining 'e-scrap'. Got 2.1g from almost 100 mobiles and old computers, which plus gold confirmed was 23ct,  do not bad for a first go!

Sticking at it, buying more as I can afford to

 

[PansPurse]

Wow, just wow!

Congratulations on the refining, how do you do that? Does it involve mercury and/or cyanide? Are you now on some kind of government watch list?

[Bullionstu]

It's not too difficult, time consuming but I enjoyed doing it.

The acids are nasty but I have a workshop with a mini lab set up so being safe!

[kimchi]

Very interesting, thanks!

I take it your job is connected to rivers etc? Did you work out how much the cost was to extract that gold and if it was cost effective? I saw a chap on Youtube who bought old shredded PC boards and went through the process, fascinating. He said it wasn't cost effective but then he'd paid for the raw material.

I also saw a very interesting documentary about groups of orphans in India who band together and trawl through the contents of sewers at night (one poor lad has to get down there and hand up buckets of raw sewage) and then pan it for gold, making enough to put a very simple roof over their head and food in their bellies. That was quite heart-warming as it kept them safe and off the streets etc. There was a very depressing one about the kids who actually live on the giant rubbish tips over there though. As if the environment wasn't bad enough they were melting metals (I don't think just PMs) off electrical waste, the fumes as well as the run off into the pools of already acrid 'water' was absolutely mind-boggling. Whole communities living on those rubbish tips, amazing.

21 minutes ago, PansPurse said:

Wow, just wow!

Congratulations on the refining, how do you do that? Does it involve mercury and/or cyanide? Are you now on some kind of government watch list?

Aqua regia + a number of water butts in the garden = ultimate security  Just to be safe it's best to electrify them as well, the only problem is if you've got kids about - you have to run the risk of one of them 'helping' you by 'watering' the plants

[MikeOxlong]

Awesome how come you go rummaging round through rivers?

[Bullionstu]

2 hours ago, MikeOxlong said:

Awesome how come you go rummaging round through rivers?

Because I'm able to find precious metals in them for free!

[Bullionstu]

Re the e-scrap, I'd say we have broken even now with the costs of acids etc, but only used a little bit of what was bought to get the nugget shown. So the next batch will start to make 'profit'.

[whitesands1]

Congratulations.  There is a fantastic sense of achievement from making something work that others find too much trouble.

This time next year............

[Bullionstu]

1 hour ago, whitesands1 said:

Congratulations.  There is a fantastic sense of achievement from making something work that others find too much trouble.

This time next year............

The way I look at it my time is free, so if I sit watching a film whilst trimming gold fingers off circuit boards and I get a little nugget of gold at the end of it I've got something of value for free really. 

I'm going to keep stacking in the hope there is another spike in spot price in my lifetime so I can chip a wedge off my mortgage or something