I dont have any gold but i wonder if any of you guys have sweated gold coins and dont know it. nov 30 1899 https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=Yp0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=4628,3784637&hl=en
I've been carrying an ASE around for a couple of years now, trying to wear it down to an interestingly low grade, but it's changed very little. Some weeks ago, I came across an Ike with some hard substance stuck to its obverse. When I rub that against the ASE, I see very tiny silver flakes on my hand. If I wore that ASE down to AG, I'd probably rub a gram or two of silver off it. If I did that inside a bag, I could presumably collect all that silver. If I bought a bunch of pre-1933 impaired US gold at or near spot, and used the "Chinese method" (probably with the help of a rock tumbler or some other automation), I guess I could make a bit of money the old-fashioned way. But I don't find the idea very tempting.
It might sound ridiculous but you can find gold literally in thin air. Here is an extract from Perth Mint http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-australia-perth-mint-has-valuable-gold-dust-in-its-walls-1407983401 Sounds pretty rich!
I'm sure it still happens to some extent, with everything made of precious metals. I know jewelers are always cleaning up the excess dust to collect and there was even a story back when gold was at $1800ish where a guy was sweeping the streets of Manhattan outside jewelry stores, taking it home and panning it. From the looks of his rig and basement, he wasn't getting rich doing it. You would need lots of gold coins to make this even remotely profitable, and I think the destruction of the value and grade of the coin would probably offset any profit from the bit of gold dust you get. But given the right circumstances, I'm sure there is still opportunity.
They were doing this long before this article - one of the reason for edge lettering and reeded edges. Still cool to read an old article about something like this.
I have a cousin who's worked at a jewelry store for many years. If I remember correctly, they have an arrangement with a recovery service that comes in once or twice a year, tears out all their carpet, puts down new, and recovers enough gold out of the old to make it profitable for the service, the carpet people, and the jewelry store.
With gold coins today, you'd probably devalue them more with the wear and damage than you would recover through the theft. I think these methods really only work with circulating coinage. Rob
