While I was travelling and without a job, I took the time to explore the places people would only pass by on their journey to another place. When I went on road trips for about two weeks at a stretch, and was away from home three to four full days at a go, I stopped in small towns. There, with usually good (and lucrative) results, I called the dentist of that town. Helpful hints!

Recall that this was years ago and the metal price was higher. There was much more competition. Some of the bigger refineries in each coast would send their own “professional buyer” out, which is what I used to do when I worked in the movie business. It’s obvious that it is expensive to pay someone a salary, and have them travel all the time. NOBODY could afford to pay someone to travel full-time today. There is therefore almost NO competition in this industry.

However, one day I decided to stop at a small Montanan town. After I informed the local dentist that I was willing to pay CASH in exchange for gold scrap and amalgam, he gave me a warm welcome. He took a small box that was filled with yellow, shiny gold out of his desk drawer. As I did not have any competitors and was hesitant to send his gold to refiners, he also was reluctant to mail it.

There is no “professional buyer” I know of who buys ANY scrap. Since they get paid for the results of their purchases, buying large quantities is a must. They should go to where most customers and accounts are. But even then they still employ a “shotgun” approach. The second is that the first person to arrive with cash gets it. You will find that the people who buy scrap from you want CASH and not to have to worry about mailing or shipping materials they don’t need, just so they can get a “possible” check. Scrap is only a fraction of their total business. It is GRAVY.

Return to our story. A doctor approached me after I had sold his gold, and made an amalgam deal (worth around $350 profit alone). But I did have access to excellent refiners. He asked me to be patient and then went behind a door. The man came out holding what appeared to be a Mason-jar full of dirt. He was clearly holding the Mason jar with two hands. It looked heavier than regular dirt.

His father was, and I believe, so too, was his grandfather, a dentist in a small Montana town when the territory still existed. He began to explain the history behind dentistry. Before vacuum cleaners, he explained that gold refiners shipped sisal flooring mats for free to dentists. They would be placed on the floor of the operatorsy to trap the dust and filings made by the patient’s mouth. Gold and silver dust from the old low speed drills was a good amount, and most of the filings and dust were either inhaled into the patient’s lungs or settled in the floor mats. This metal was captured by sisal. The refiners shipped replacement mats directly to the dentist, who then returned the old ones. The refiners will burn mats so they can recover metals. They’ll then pay the dentist for the token.

On closer inspection, the jar revealed that it was full of metal filings, as well as dirt. The doctor said he has had the jar of floor sweeps for several decades in his office. This jar actually dates from when floor mats were still supplied by refiners to dental offices. They were sweepings not caught by the mats. The jar was four pounds and I could not tell just by looking if it had anything of value in it. I offered to send it off to my refiner for an analysis. The trust I earned was never questioned.
You can return the value to him by mentioning any of these aspects: refining cost, percentage of recover, etc. Just say “take it and tell me how it is valued, take your fair portion, and bring me money the next time you are in the area”.

It was a few weeks after I had returned home to Utah that I finally decided to use it. The only thing I was concerned about is that it might have some silver in it, but not much. So, there was no rush. Then I asked my refiner to melt the metal and perform an assay. Final Score: Metals 60 %, dirt 40 %. These metals are silver and golden. The gold was 75% pure and ran at almost 18K.

In less than twenty minutes, I had earned the trust of his boss. He was happy with a few hundred dollars for DIRT on a shelf.

Unusual? Yes.

It was only after I had learned the third and fourth lessons of my recycling lesson that I realized where to find the “deals”. The deals will not come to your door if they aren’t out there.

A lot of business happens informally with a mere handshake. In this business, and in every other one you do, the most important asset you have is trust.

Since then, I’ve experienced many things that have opened my eyes. One retired dentist called and told me he was a gold-sparing dentist. He had collected two 5-gallon buckets of the precious metal over his lifetime. I would get a call from him once or twice a calendar year whenever he needed to sell off ten, fifteen ounces in order to cover his tax bill. One farmer I met had nearly 10,000 catalytics converters in his barn. Another scrap yard held over 5 thousand. Other people have given me various scrap materials, but only with the promise that they would pay later.

Do you see this often?

No. This happens so often that your life becomes like a continuous treasure hunt. Every morning you are excited to find out what is in store. It’s hard to believe, but the thrill and anticipation of finding something new never ends!