Smelting Silver Specimens, The Richest Silver Ore I've Ever Seen. Is It Worth It??

With silver prices skyrocketing to $85/oz, my friend Dan had a crazy hypothesis: the "melt value" of his high-grade Bulldog Mountain Mine specimens might actually be higher than what he paid for them as collectibles. Today, we put that theory to the test. It hurts my heart to crush these beautiful native silver and acanthite slabs, but for the sake of science (and dollars and cents), we’re turning specimens into silver bars. These slabs are estimated to be roughly 80% silver by weight, featuring native silver, acanthite (silver sulfide), and barite gangue. We use an XRF gun to get an initial reading, then head to the jaw crusher. Because this material is so rich, we use a specialized flux recipe: Soda Ash & Borax: To thin the silica and barite. Iron Nails: Crucial for decomposing the silver sulfides. No Collector Metal: With this much silver, the ore collects itself! Did we hit the 20-ounce break-even point? Not quite. We learned a hard lesson about "void space" in crystalline silver and why a density test is the one thing we should have done before reaching for the hammer. Even with a 99% recovery rate on the first melt, the "AI estimation" of the specimen's value was way off. What do you think? Was it worth destroying the specimens to find the truth? This video is a great reminder that just because it looks like solid metal doesn't mean it's as heavy as it looks! Subscribe for Part 2, where we refine this bar to 99.9% pure silver. Get your Smelting Supplies at Legend Mine Supply: https://www.lmine.com/ Follow Dan's Channel: @HighCountryGoldSilver #SilverSmelting #FireAssay #SilverMining #HighGradeOre #BulldogMountain #XRF #Geology #SilverPrice #MetalRefining For more info please email or call: Email: info@MBMMLLC.com Phone: 360-595-4445 Website: http://www.mbmmllc.com/ Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/MBMMLLC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MBMMLLC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mbmmllc/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MBMMLLC 0:00 The $4,000 Silver Experiment 1:15 Meet Dan & the Bulldog Mountain Slabs 3:00 XRF Analysis: Is there Gold in here? 4:45 The Point of No Return: Crushing Specimens 6:30 Smelting Strategy (Using Iron Nails for Sulfides) 8:15 The Pour: High-Grade Silver vs. Barite Slag 10:00 XRF Testing the Slag 12:30 The Weigh-In: Did we Break Even? 14:00 Why the AI Estimate Failed 16:00 Operation Slag Remelt (99% Recovery)