Just a note regarding silver plate scrap -

Apparently there is a "new" market for scrap silver plate - not to recover the silver, but to recover the copper. I found a guy who buys it (by the pound - no idea on pricing just yet, and he states up front that he damages all pieces to determine if they are indeed copper or high copper alloy pieces) - now I want to find the scrap yard that buys it from him! Wonder what the price of nickle is these days ......................................

 

Hi,
Even back in the 70s I used to take really worn pieces of plate to a small replating place. The owner would strip off the silver for me and leave beautiful copper pieces. He never charged since the cost of silver paid for the work. I had copper gutters and drainpipes put on my house since it was only 5% more than aluminum. Little did I realize the cost of copper skyrocketing. I thought the price would fall when the Gov stopped making pennies out of bronze. Stupid me thought the price of silver would fall when they stopped using it for photo film and X-rays.
greg

 

I see lots of stuff at thrifts marked E.P. on Copper, and some of them are fairly heavy, but I think the prices are still too high to make copper recovery viable from that source.

 

Nickel is about three times the price of copper

Scrap buyers don't pay that much for 'white brass' or 'nickel silver' because it is hard to separate the copper from the nickel

 

Someone who goes to all of the auctions I go to buys junky silverplate items to scrap. He told me that he gets 1.65 / lb. or something like that. Doesn't seem worth it to me.

 

Depending on the piece,I like a bit of BLOOM on a vintage/antique silverplated piece of copper Just hope folks don't decide to scrap genuine Sheffield.

 

I do enameling & I am just starting to play around with stripping silver plate to get copper to enamel. What makes it worth the hassle is that good copper items to enamel are getting harder to find and more expensive. There seems to be a bit of an enameling revival going on (Fire Mountain has started carrying enamel), but so far it's mostly aimed at jewelry, not decorative items.

 

elarnia, I would LOVE to see some of your work here, sounds very interesting