Recycling Metal

I had originally read a post on the Metal Clay yahoo group about using NTR Metals for recycling metal.  This was something I had wanted to do for quite a while - actually years.  With the price of silver at its peak now in years (over $40.00/oz. as of today) there was no time like the present.  For us Boston Metal Clay people, we are very fortunate to have one of their 38 worldwide locations here in Stoughton, MA. 

My first trip took a little longer than I'd anticipated.  The only reason was that you have to fill out a form and it has to get faxed and approved by their corporate headquarters.  What I should have done is gone on their site, downloaded their application, printed it, filled it out and faxed it.  This could have reduced my wait to only 10-15 minutes!  I've gone twice now and there really wasn't much of a wait.  The second time I went, I dropped it off, went to IKEA (also in Stoughton and only 5 minutes away!), came back and literally just picked up my check. And the nice thing is, they do take sweeps.  So, for all of you who've been collecting your metal clay filings on wet wipes, you can just put them in a ziploc bag, place that in a box and bring them with your name and address noted somewhere.  They have to send their sweeps to their corporate office for assaying.  They don't do it locally.  They will then send you a check in the mail.  

I've only used this service for my sterling and fine silver scrap which had been piling up over the years.  I don't have much in the way of sweeps yet.  But it sure felt good recycling those atrocious metal clay charms I did in my first PMC class.  Does that bring back memories to any of you?