Gemologist Sam is Now Providing Smelting and Assaying Services

While Gemologist Sam will still buy your gold, silver, jewelry, and other treasures you no longer want, he has added two new services to help you:  smelting and assaying precious metals.

What are smelting and assaying, and why would you want those services?

What is the Difference between Melting and Smelting?

Simply put, melting is changing metals from a solid state to a liquid state; it liquefies the metal.  It brings about a physical change in the metal.

Smelting is a method of purifying metals by melting and separating the pure metal from impurities.  It brings about a chemical change, not just physical.

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How Does Aqua Regia Refine Gold?

Aqua regia is also known as aqua regis, and comes from the Latin phrase royal water.

Gold produced from agua regia.

Gold produced from agua regia. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

It is a highly-corrosive mixture of acids, fuming yellow or red solution, also called nitro-hydrochloric acid. The mixture is formed by freshly mixing nearly pure nitric acid and maximum-concentration (38%) hydrochloric acid, usually in a volume ratio of 1:3 respectively.

Aqua regia is primarily used to produce chloroauric acid, the electrolyte in the Wohlwill process. This process is used for refining highest quality (99.999%) gold.

Wikipedia tells the story of how, when Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of the German physicists Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925) in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after the jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935.

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A Brief Overview of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Part 2 of a 2-Part Series

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 is also known as the “financial reform bill.”  It was signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010, and goes into effect on July 16, 2011, unless the SEC or CFTC raises any major objections or queries.  You can read the entire 848-page document at Markets Reform Wiki.

But what is it and how will it affect investors?

It was named after Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who respectively introduced it to the House of Representatives and the Senate Banking Committee in 2009.  The Act was passed in response to the recession that began in 2008, and is the most sweeping change to financial regulation in the United States since the Great Depression.  Its goal is to prevent another economic meltdown from happening.

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