Scrap metal!

[backman]

I dropped into a (proper)jewellers in my local high street recently to enquire if they stocked any silver safety chains to add to my badges with safety loops.We got talking and I explained what they were for and the nature of collecting nurses badges and he told me that he had, from time to time,badges bought as job lots,including a gold prize badge for a local hospital for which he didn't think there was a market and which were melted down for scrap value!!!! When he picked me off the floor and dried my eyes he said that if someone had told him that such items were actually worth saving he would have sold them separately.Suffice to say he is keeping his eyes open for more items for me.The scrap price for gold is such that one item I was intending to sell is actually worth more as scrap than I was intending to list it for(crazy world) The moral of the story is do try and approach such vendors as you never know if they have a treasure about to go in the smelting pot.
Oh and he can find me silver safety chains although they will cost me a couple of pounds each.
Good luck out there.

[nursesue]

ooooooooooo it does make you wonder what else  went into the melting pot. You only have to watch flog it and antiques roadshow to realise that people do throw valuable things away A recent flog it showed a builder who found a necklace in his skip , he retrieved it and it sold at auction for £600! Gold and silver prices are high at the moment but thats due to the recession - sell my silver badges for cash- never (don't have any gold badges)

[barrysutton]

The only gold nurses/hospital badges in my collection are Canadian & U.S.A., I also have a R.A.M.C. & S.A.M.C. gold sweethearts
brooches, the S.A.M.C. one came out of a junk box , was filthy and cost £1 (still one of my best buys).