Practical Uses

Broken gold refers to damaged, deformed, or incomplete gold items that no longer serve as jewellery or functional objects and are primarily intended for the smelting process.

Cutlery silver refers to solid silverware with a fineness of at least 800 parts per thousand (80 %), which was particularly widespread in middle-class and aristocratic households during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Dental gold is the gold alloy used in dental prosthetics such as crowns and bridges – typically with a fineness between 750 and 900, often enriched with valuable additions of platinum and palladium.

Dental gold refers to precious-metal-containing dental alloys used in dentistry for crowns, bridges and inlays, which yield valuable precious metals such as gold, platinum and palladium when recycled.

Gold hammered or rolled into ultra-thin sheets, used in gilding, arts and crafts and food processing.

Industrial gold refers to gold used in technical applications – particularly the electronics industry – rather than for investment or jewellery purposes.

Industrial silver refers to silver used as a raw material in technical and industrial applications, as opposed to investment or jewellery silver.

Jewellery gold refers to gold alloys used in the manufacture of jewellery, expressed by fineness in karats or per mille depending on the gold content.

Medals are struck or cast metal discs without legal tender status, produced from precious metals as commemorative, award, or collector pieces.

Silver used as a conductive paste in solar cells to conduct electricity away from the semiconductor, now representing the single largest industrial consumption category for the metal.

Scrap gold refers to used or damaged gold items – jewellery, dental gold, coins, and industrial residues – that are melted down and refined to recover the contained fine gold content.

Scrap silver refers to used silver from jewellery, cutlery, coins, or industrial products that is melted down or processed as a raw material.

Silver coins as circulating money were government-minted means of payment made from silver alloys that dominated everyday monetary transactions for centuries, until rising silver prices forced their withdrawal and replacement with coins made from base metals.

Solid silver cutlery consists entirely of a silver alloy, whereas silver-plated cutlery carries only a thin silver layer over a base-metal core.

Wristwatches and pocket watches whose case, bracelet or dial is made entirely or partially from gold, silver, platinum or palladium.