Customer Raves - Published Articles
Gary Dolinko of Midstates Recycling & Refining in Des Plaines, Illinois, has also done his share of stone recovery jobs, and his company handles quantities from 10 troy oz. to 250 troy oz. “We’ve had customers come to us with several bags of scrap that are loaded with small stones,” he says. “It would be hugely laborious and costly to have someone sit at a bench and remove the stones—not to mention the likelihood of damaging a few in the process. Now manufacturers and retail scrappers can send out these goods containing stones as-is.”
The castings and settings with stones are placed into solution and the metallics dissolve, leaving the stones behind. Midstates then filters the stones from the solution, cleans and dries them, and returns them to the customer. The metal is then chemically precipitated back out of solution and refined. Dolinko points out that although most stones will survive this process unscathed, pearls and low-grade opal can be harmed by the acid and should be removed by hand, or written off as lost in the refining process.
-AJM: Go-to Guys
September 2005
Remember the days when you were holding out to scrap your gold until the precious metal reached $300.00 an ounce?
Have you taken inventory of your scrap gold lately? Have you looked at your slow moving, or non-selling jewelry lately? Are some of you jewelry tags so old, they are dirty, crumbled and hard to read?
If you've said yes to any or all of these questions, then it's time to consider scrapping your jewelry with Mid-States Recycling in Des Plaines, IL. 1-800-551-0083
For the past few months, gold has been trading in the $400.00 per ounce range. Recently it has peaked to $435.00. It is anticipated to increase even further to $450.00 an ounce, with $500.00 an ounce projections for some trading analysts.
Dedicated readers of this publication will remember last edition's article featuring David Gellar from JewelProfit, Inc. David travels the country informing jewelers and pawnbrokers how to increase your profits by liquidating inventory that is not selling quickly or not selling at all.
He informs pawnbrokers how to turn that "tied up" money in unsellable inventory into new, liquid cash to fuel current and future pawns.
If you are not turning your inventory four times a year, then you are over-stocked in inventory and you are loosing money by not having enough liquid cash to keep loaning money on pawns.
Steve Krupnick, Indiana Pawnbroker Association's President, recently was quoted as saying,
"You should be loaning money out like you were printing it in the back room." What he meant was you should be loaning out as much money as you can to every customer that walks through your door.
If you are tight on cash and long on gold jewelry, maybe you should call Jack Brown at Mid-States Recycling. He'll buy your gold and give you that much-needed boost in liquid cash.
I'm calling him right now!
-The Illinoisian Quarterly
Fall 2004
Mid-States Recycling & Refining located in Des Plaines boasts the longest and most exemplary history of all mid-west based precious metal refining companies dating back to it's roots from the former Simmons Refining Co. of Chicago. They have been the top choice for Jewelers, Dental Labs, Industrial, Electronic and Photographic precious metal generators for decades.
Established in 1981, Mid-States continues to be a model for precious metal processors and refiners all over the world. As a full service refinery you can expect the highest recoveries and most competitive processing rates for all of your precious metal recyclables. Exclusive state of the art induction smelting for metalics and controlled pyrolosis burning and milling for sweeps, grindings and investment are only a few ways that differentiates Mid-States from their competitors.
With its full service in house Trading and Bullions Department, Mid-States will fix the highest live metals prices or return investment grade "Fine Metals" at wholesale prices from the most complete bullion inventory in the Chicagoland area.
A full service precious metal assay laboratory right on the premises insures expeditious results on your samples with the highest level of analytical accuracy possible. Mid-States' chemical engineers have even been contracted by other Precious Metal Refiners, Jewelers, Dental Alloy and Industrial Manufactures for Commercial ISO Assay Certification.
Mid-States is open to visit M-F 8:00-4:00. You can also schedule an appointment to witness the processing and sampling of your own scrap materials. Samples will be provided to customers for their own assay verification.
-In Touch With The IDLA (Illinois Dental Lab Association)
Volume 5, Issue 1, Spring 2004
NPA member Mid-States Recycling has had a banner year. Mid-States is a refiner, smelter, assayer and broker of precious metals serving: industry, refiners, collectors and dealers in gold, silver, platinum, palladium iridium and rhodium.
The company has worked to make significant improvements to their processing in order to maintain maximum recoveries. They have also hired new personnel with extensive technical experience, and added a new web site to access refining and product information online.
Mid-States has added additional capacity to their sweeps and milling department for burnable's such as jewelers buffing's and polishing's, ceramic-based industrial scrap, and precious metal bearing powders and residues. The implementation of this capacity should reduce the potential for mechanical metal losses from less effective processing methods used by other refiners. The new, less-intrusive approach to processing these millable commodities yields the highest possible precious metal recoveries with shorter settlement times.
The new web site, www.midstatesrecycling.com, made it's debut in April at the 2001 Midwest Pawnbrokers Convention. Among its numerous features are regularly updates precious metal prices from London and New York each business day, market news, information on bouillon bar and coin prices and refining schedules. Midstatesrecycling.com is the only web site in the industry that features a complete list of refining rates for all popular forms of precious metal bearing scrap. They have also added a new, interactive "Karat Kalculator." It enables customers to calculate the approximate value of their Karat Gold Scrap shipment at whatever price they input. This tool will help customers to determine insured values for their shipment, print custom packing lists and even help to determine what you should be paying your own customers for their scrap gold.
Mid-States is one of NPA's newest FBL preferred vendors. A small part of your settlement (as little as $5.00) can be diverted to the Future Business Leaders Scholarship Fund.
-National Pawnbroker
-So, You thought it would sell, Huh?
You bought that “wonderful” piece of jewelry you just knew would sell in a couple of weeks.
You pawned that cluster ring for that “good customer” and you just knew they would “pick it up.”
A year later they are both in your showcase. You've marked them down and moved them from one showcase to another. Just when you thought a customer was going to buy your over-priced treasure, they chose another ring.
We've all been there. Yes, you could scrap them out, and stock the diamonds, but, my gosh, this cluster has 121 channel-set full cuts in all different directions.
The cost to have your jeweler remove them would be too high. The mess you would make doing it yourself would be costly. You've got too much into the ring because your “good” customer stiffed you on it.
What to do? Well, look no further than Mid-State's Recycling, Des Plaines IL . Yes, Jack Brown from Mid-States started offering a new refining service, in addition to his other fine services.
Send Jack all your scrap jewelry with the “mounted diamonds” and he'll scrap out the metal, pay you cash for it and return all your diamonds in a neat little baggy, cleaned and without a nick on them. And the best part: You'll get everyone back. For anyone who has tried cutting diamonds out of rings, you know there's always that one or two that flies with the cutoff wheel, never to be found. Right???
Yes, this is another story about one of my convention contacts. Jack mentioned this new service at last years at last year's Illinois Pawnbrokers Association's Mid-Year meeting in Bloomingdale, IL (I didn't see you there.)
Mid-States new service is this: Send Jack all your scrap jewelry with mounted diamonds. He puts them into a solution that dissolves all the metal. The diamonds settle to the bottom of the vat. An electronic analysis is done on the metal content and a value is determined. Jack then pays you for your gold at that day's spot prices, washes your diamonds, neatly packs and ships them back to you.
You then can remount your diamonds in more sellable jewelry. You can stock them for jewelry repair replacements or sell them to the many diamond vendors who frequent the National and Local Pawnbrokers Conventions for another quick check.
I know. The questions are already flying. How can I be sure I will get all my diamonds back? How can they determine how much gold is dissolved? Will they give me the current gold price? How will I know?
What you do to satisfy your curiosity is up to you. This is what I did: When I was scrapping a ring or similar items, I would cut off the good part of the scrapped shank without stones and stock that. The part that had the diamonds was weighed separately. I recorded in a ledger what kind of gold, i.e. 10, 14, 18k. I recorded the weight of the metal containing the stone and recorded the number of stones and estimated weight.
When I reached 25 carats of diamonds, I sent the lot to Mid-States Recycling for processing. This process took about a month, but I also sent along my regular lot of scrapped jewelry for immediate payment.
30 Days later, I received a check in the mail with the diamonds and metal settlement.
Was my settlement what I thought it would be? Absolutely not. I had recorded 25.5 carats of miscellaneous diamonds based on my formula of 1.3mm - .01pt., etc.
Well, I received over 31 carats of loose diamonds + a check for my dissolved metal. And, that was right on the money. I took my 31 carats to the latest Midwest Convention in Louisville , KY and sold it to Bob Weiner from Worldwide for another big check.
Call Jack @ Mid-States Recycling for more details. 1-800-551-0083, ext #20
-The Illinoisian Quarterly
