I have dissolved many an ounce of silver coin/bullion of all the so-called pure nines. My experience indicates that very little (traces) Cu, Pb, etc., are present. However, I do find collectable amounts of Au and other metals that will only dissolve in Aqua Regia. Because there seems to be so much controversy regarding what the nines mean here's part of what I posted in my web page relating to an email copy from a noted mint.
To my knowledge there is nothing pure on this world. To date I know of no one being able to make air, water, gold or silver 100% pure. So, don't let hype fool you. Keep in mind the age-old adage - buyer beware!
There seems to be considerable controversy, abundant misunderstanding and ample ignorance as to what exactly 99.9, 99.99, 99.999 and 99.9999 is meant to convey. I see claims that 99.99% is synonymous with .9999, which to me is odd arithmetic. Clearly, 99.9% is not as pure as 99.99%, nor is .99 the same purity as 99.9999%, but is the same as 99.99%. To my knowledge there is no such thing as one hundred percent (pure) silver. That's why silver, or any precious metal is usually designated as something less than pure. Our historic American silver dollars are 90% pure with the remaining 10% as impurities.
Due to the confusion I wrote to several refiners & mints of silver bullion and asked them to explain what's the difference of: 99.99, 99.999 & 99.9999. To date only one email reply came back saying that ". . . . coins are marked 9999 which means that 9999 parts of 10000 are pure silver or gold. This is the same as 99.99% pure. Gold that is 99.999 pure is 99.999% pure, so 99.999 parts of 100 are pure gold. We do not refine gold to 99.9999% purity, but this is the same, it would mean 99.9999 parts of 100 are pure gold."
When I re-examined these silver coins to see if there was a DOT before the 4 nines (9999) sure enough there was NO dot. Essentially, I fooled myself by assuming that these 4 nines was synonymous with .9999. Therefore, it just goes to show that as skeptical as I am, I too can fool myself by not being careful or observant. By the way I also re-examined all my silver bullion and most of the three nines did not have a dot in front of the nines. Barnum & Bailey said something like - "there's a sucker born every minute" and I was one of those foolish enough to fall into this in-your-face trap. I can't shift blame from myself for NOT seeing the obvious, but I can warn others to see clearly, never assume anything and always beware. Having said the above - I guess that I'd better say that - perhaps my thinking process is skewed or a bit tarnished, so make up your own mind as to what is accurate or not.
I sure hope this helps reduce the tug of war over what the NINEs convey. Respectfully, Joseph http://www.accu-thump.com/cs.html At 06:40 PM 03/12/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>.999 generally assays out at around .9997 +/- It's well into the pure enough range and most of the impurities are copper anyhow. .9999 is only slightly more expensive and preferred..but not for any 'good' reason. That dot that's missing on the coins is implied. ken At 10:43 AM 3/12/02 EST, you wrote: >>>> Here's what the REAL researchers say NOT to use: 1- Uncontrolled Current caused by generation systems which use uncontrollable 9 Volt transistor radio batteries (Only Current Controlled AC/DC laboratory grade power supplies should be used to produce Colloidal Minerals) 2- .999 percent silver wire (a lessor quality of silver on market, used for necklaces and jewelry) (.9999 is 1 thousand times purer than .999 silver - If you want 1 thousand times more metal and mineral impurities in your Colloidal Silver, then go ahead and use the least expensive silver wire (.999) for your colloidal production. IM LOOKING FOR INPUT HERE, I JUST BOUGHT A CS GENERATOR, AND HAVE .999 PER CENT WIRES SO, IM GETTING IMPURITIES? <<<< -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: [email protected] Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
