Industry Leading Gold Refiners

Gold refining is more than just melting metal; it’s a precision-driven process that converts gold-bearing scrap metal materials into high-purity 9995 Fine Gold, which can be used again to manufacture alloys and products in a myriad of different industries.

Whether you’re a jeweler generating bench filings and polishing dust from your manufacturing processes, a pawnbroker liquidating inventories of karat gold jewelry, or a dentist recycling extracted crown and bridge restorations, our Chicago-area facility provides certified assays and fast settlements trusted by thousands nationwide. We offer full chain-of-custody tracking and over 40 years of expertise to help you confidently recover the most return from your recycled gold scrap. Mid-States delivers precision refining so you don’t leave value behind.

What Types of Gold Do We Accept?

Not all gold scrap is created equal. From high-karat jewelry to bench filings and dental gold, we refine and purchase a broad spectrum of gold-bearing material for commercial clients across the U.S.

Overview:

Karat Gold Scrap:

Most jewelers and pawnbrokers handle karat gold scrap every day—things like broken rings, chain fragments, clasps, earrings without pairs, or outdated bracelets. These pieces may look like odds and ends. Together, however, they carry significant gold value. At Mid-States, we melt, assay, and purchase these items to recover the fine gold content – whether it’s 10k, 14k, 18k, or higher. By converting scrap into saleable 99.9% pure bullion, we help you turn everyday leftovers from the counter into real payout value.

Industrial and Electronic Gold Scrap:

Industrial generators of scrap gold by-products could typically include plating operations that generate precious metal-bearing slurries, metal scrapings from physical vapor deposition, or scrap gold recovered from spent plating solutions. Other gold-plated material in the form of reject or obsolete electronic parts might come from electronic manufacturing operations, while plated scrap metal stampings and substrate material might come from a tool and die or metal stamping operation. Other forms of industrial gold scrap may include high-purity gold brazing alloys or scrap metal parts that contain gold brazing.

Coins & Bullion:

As a full-service wholesaler of precious metal bullion investment products, we’re both a buyer and seller. We carry a complete inventory of government-issued coins, bank bank-issued hallmarked bullion investment bars, rounds, and privately minted products. Customers who prefer to take fine metal bullion against the settlements from their scrap metal refining lots can receive fine metal bullion as part of their final payment.

Dental Gold:

Dental gold scrap most often contains a mix of metals such as silver, platinum, and palladium. The combination of all these precious metals makes dental scrap a very valuable alloy that should always be processed as a precious metal recyclable. We accept both modern and legacy dental scrap like crowns, inlays, bridges, and extracted restorations.

Dental laboratories still manufacturing dental prosthetics using noble metals (i.e. gold, silver, platinum, and palladium) should be generating manufacturing by-products that include casting sprues, bench filings, and polishing sweeps./p>

Processing Karat Gold Scrap with Mid-States

Widely known and highly respected for our technical expertise and transparent approach to providing our customers the highest metal recoveries and unmatched customer service, we invite you to visit our facility and witness the process.

Step-by-Step – What Happens from Arrival to Final Payout

• Step 1

  Once your scrap material arrives at either of our locations (processing plant in Des Plaines or our office in Jewelers Row, downtown Chicago), your material is inspected, weighed, photographed, and logged in to our database with its unique refining lot number for further processing. All material received is witnessed and verified by two people to ensure accuracy of all weights and documentation.

• Step 2

  Your material is then checked out by our melting department, who will again verify the material description and proper weight. The material is melted and sampled in our electric induction smelting furnaces. This process occurs in specially-designed glass vacuum tubes while at its most homogenous state, still in its liquid form. The metal is poured into an ingot, cleaned, re-weighed, and marked with its unique refining lot number. The sample from the melt is delivered to our laboratory for analysis, while the melted bar is secured and held in our vault until paid for or released to us by our customers .

• Step 3

  Once in the laboratory, the sample is shot on our highly sensitive XRF instrument to provide our chemists with a preliminary indication of the metal content before running the corrected fire assay to yield the most accurate final result for payment. We appreciate the quick and convenient benefit of having the initial XRF result, as it gives us an early indication of the metal contents and allows us to accurately provide our customers with the maximum dollar amount of any advance payments they may like to take before their final settlement is available.

• Step 4

  Lastly, upon completion of the analytical work, all the data from receiving, melting, and laboratory are compiled by our metal trading department to prepare the final settlement report and arrange for final payment to our customers. The trading department will calculate the final payment based on either the current day’s market prices or the customers “hedges” from prices that they’ve previously “locked”. Some customers might prefer to take all or a portion of their settlement back as physical metal in the form of fine gold grain (shot), or as hallmarked bullion bars or coins.

Fire Assay, ICP, and XRF – Which Testing Method Yields the Most Accurate Gold Analysis?

At Mid-States, we use several tools to test gold. It’s important to know that not all methods give the same level of accuracy. Mid-States tests scrap lots using a combination of fire assay, ICP, and XRF to ensure fast and reliable results.

• XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence): A non-destructive scan of the surface. While this method is quick and modern, it only reads the outside layer.

• ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma): This method dissolves a sample into liquid and analyzes it. This process is very sensitive, but slower.

• Fire Assay: The oldest and most trusted method. The sample is melted, separated, and weighed to show true precious-metal content. Fire assay verifies karat accuracy within ±0.05% margin, making it the industry standard for final settlement.

One of the downsides of explicitly depending on XRF for analysis is the limitation of the technology, which only reads the fluorescent diffraction from the surface or with a slight penetration of the surface. Trying to determine the elemental makeup of an item being tested using XRF from an improperly prepared or non-homogeneous sample will produce an erroneous result. An example of when we see this happen is when someone uses an XRF instrument to test a piece of gold-filled jewelry and gets readings indicating 10 karat (40% range), but the piece being tested will actually contain only 2-5% gold content by weight. That’s why Mid-States relies on proper melting, sampling, and fire assay to provide our customers with the most accurate payment for their scrap gold materials.

Our Gold Refining Process

Scrap metal solids or other miscellaneous gold-bearing materials that may be by-products from manufacturing require treatment and processing to determine the fine gold content. Typically, this involves melting or milling the material into a homogeneous form from which representative samples are drawn and tested to determine the actual gold content.

Once the samples are taken, there are several options for properly analyzing the fine gold content. Different methods of analysis can include instrumental technologies like XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence), ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma), or — typically understood as the most accurate approach—corrected fire assay.

Once the material is paid for and ownership of the metal has been assumed by Mid-States, aggregated like materials are combined into large-size dore’ lots and processed through a chemical dissolution process using a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids (aqua regia) and then selectively precipitated to produce fine gold sponge. Once rinsed and dried, the fine gold sponge is melted and poured into selected sizes of fine gold bullion bars or poured through specially made Carbon Graphite screens to produce granulated fine gold (which is used for manufacturing different karat grades of gold jewelry alloys).

Necessity and Demand for Gold Refining

Recycling and refining secondary scrap material containing precious metals, especially gold-bearing materials, has become environmentally and economically essential for several reasons.

Gold that has traditionally been mined from geological sources is under much scrutiny because of its direct impact on land, river beds, and heavily forested areas. One of the most extreme examples is the mining that has devastated the Amazon rainforest. Wildlife has seen much of its habitat taken away because of the diminishment of these plush areas. The depletion of heavily landscaped areas is further creating an imbalance in the carbon footprint created by human activity.

Now more than ever, commercial and industrial users of gold have been influenced to embrace the idea of limiting their gold consumption strictly to recycled sources of the rare metal. A great example of this is the RJC (Responsible Jewelry Council) mandate to the jewelry industry, which has specific chain of custody requirements for metal used to manufacture jewelry on a global scale.

Insured Shipping and Secure Customer Portal

Customers can safely ship their materials to us using registered mail service through the United States Post Office, or we can arrange securely insured shipping of your packages through Federal Express or United Parcel Service. Once you provide us with a description of the contents and value of your shipment, we’ll email you a specially-coded shipping label and can arrange for your pickup.

Once your shipment is received, you can log in through the customer portal on the Mid-States website and track your refining lot through the entire process (from receiving to final settlement). You may also view all of your account activity, including: your metal trading activity, current metal consignment balances, view and print your previously settled refining lots, or browse through our complete inventory of available metal and bullion products available for return or purchase.

Why Choose Mid-States as Your Gold Refiner?

When every gram counts, who you trust to assay and payout accurately becomes the difference between profit and loss. Professionals rely on Mid-States for repeat refining cycles.

• 40+ Years in Business – Trusted Nationwide:

  Longevity alone isn’t enough; what matters is consistency. For over four decades, Mid-States has earned the trust of jewelers, pawnbrokers, dental labs, and precious metal dealers across the U.S. By combining proven methods with transparent reporting, we’ve built credibility nationwide.

• On-site Lab With Highest Accuracy Fire Assay Analysis:

  Unlike many refiners who outsource testing, Mid-States performs all assays in-house. Mid-States delivers fire-assayed gold payouts with certified accuracy, and validation with <0.05% deviation. That level of control means your payout is never based on guesswork or surface scans; it’s backed by the industry’s most accurate method.

• Fast Settlements – Express Lot Payouts Available within 24 Hours:

  Clients processing their smaller karat gold lots can receive payment within 24 hours of receipt. Refining terms for larger lots are outlined under the “Jewelers” and “Pawnbrokers” sections of the “Refining Schedules” dropdown menu. We offer refining terms that provide metal credits of up to 99% for those processing larger lot sizes.

• Fully Insured Nationwide Shipping—Door-to-Door Tracking:

  From your shop to our refinery, every package is covered. We provide insured shipping options with door-to-lab tracking using trusted carriers like FedEx, UPS, and USPS Registered Mail. That means peace of mind from pickup to payout.

• Client-Verified Reputation

  Accreditation matters, but client experience matters more. Mid-States is consistently positively recommended by clients across multiple industries. Repeat clients prefer Mid-States for our unquestioned ethics, transparent business practices, financial stability, and quick turnaround. We’re a trusted gold refining partner, generation after generation.

Mid-States has the expertise and equipment to handle it all–karat scrap, bench filings, coins, or dental restorations. We specialize in refining mixed lots accurately, so you can send a variety of items in one shipment and trust that each type will be properly tested and credited. If your lot includes other precious metals, such as silver, we’ll process those as well. Learn more on our Silver Refining page.

When you choose Mid-States, you’re choosing a partner who protects your value from shipment to settlement—delivering accuracy, transparency, and payouts you can trust every time.

FAQs for Gold Refining (PAA-Optimized)

These frequently asked questions address the key concerns of our customers—from refining timelines and assay reports to safety, documentation, and tax queries.

What is the most accurate method for analyzing gold?

Fire assay is the most accurate method for analyzing the purity of gold, measuring fine-gold content within ±0.05% accuracy. At Mid-States Recycling in Chicago, every lot is melted, sampled, and assayed in-house to ensure certified results.

How quick can Mid-States turnaround and pay for a scrap Gold lot?

All lots are processed quickly at our Illinois facilities. Gold refining at Mid-States takes about 2-4 days from receipt. Our express service for smaller lots are settled between 24-48 hours from receipt of alloys.

Can I send in mixed karat gold for refining?

Yes, you must be a licensed second-hand dealer or business enterprise to sell gold for refining at Mid-States. We don’t provide refining services to the general public.

Do I need to be a business to sell gold for refining?

Yes, you must be a licensed second-hand dealer or business enterprise to sell gold for refining at Mid-States. We don’t provide refining services to the general public.

Is it safe to ship gold for refining?

Yes, it’s safe to ship gold for refining with Mid-States. Every package is fully insured and tracked with carriers like FedEx, UPS, or USPS Registered Mail, ensuring secure delivery from your shop to our refineries.

Will I receive an assay report with every payment?

Yes, Mid-States provides a detailed settlement report with the assay results for every refining lot. Each report shows the weight received, after-melt weigh, assay results, refining charges, and market prices paid for each metal.

Is Income from gold refining taxable in the U.S.?

Yes, gold refining income is taxable in the U.S. The IRS treats profits from selling scrap gold as a normal gain against the original cost basis of the metal. Mid-States advises clients to consult a tax advisor for reporting.

Can I track my refining shipment and payout status?

Yes, you can track your refining shipment, processing status, and a myriad of other useful information through the Client Portal on the Mid-States website.

Request a refining quote for your scrap gold material.

CTA Copy: Want a fast, secure way to refine your gold? Call us for an explanation of our refining terms or schedule a secure pickup — with full insurance and tracking.

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