Unexpected Places Where You Can Find Precious Metals
People searching for gold and silver have options. For the discriminating treasure hunter, the world is full of places hiding precious metals. In this article will explore a few opportunities for precious metal collecting that very few consider. By the end of this piece, you will know unexpected places where you can find precious metals.
Landfills
When people think of precious metals, they imagine expensive items one guards diligently. But in reality, precious metals, like all things, can be mishandled and, sometimes, abandoned. Visit any landfill and you are likely to find medical equipment, jewelry, automative parts, electronics, and many other odds and ends with precious metals inside.
People who use proper extraction methods can remove a fortune of scrap precious metals out of landfills. To do so requires specialized equipment and training. Maybe a landfill isn’t the easiest place for the average person to find precious metals. However, for those willing to learn, these could yield amazing discoveries.
Old Mine Tailings
After valuable minerals have been separated from ore, miners leave behind waste materials, which we call mine tailings. Inside these tailings we can find water, rock, process chemicals, but also leftover precious metals like gold and silver. Although mine tailings can be hazardous to one’s health, people who understand how to sift through them might find precious metals.

Jewelry Scrap
Homes everywhere have piles of jewelry completely forgotten. Often people collect their scrap jewelry, items they think are worthless or ugly or both, and throw them in a bag. They leave them deep in closets or boxes, never to be looked at again.
Speaking from years of experience, DMK Metal can tell you those junk drawers of jewelry might have something valuable people overlooked. Very often people show David Kaz a bag a jewelry confident nothing of it will be of value, only to be offered hundreds or thousands of dollars for something they might have given away. Don’t underestimate the value of jewelry. The scraps might contain something valuable.
Garage Sales
Touring garage sales could yield some exciting discoveries. You might find jewelry, china, or other sources of gold and silver. You can scour lists of garage sales online every weekend. “Garage sailing” is a good strategy for finding precious metals.
Coin Rolls
Here’s a way to spend a Saturday. Bring $500 to a bank and ask for that much in quarters. Then go through every roll searching for silver.
It may surprise you to learn that up until 1965 United States coins contained silver. Although you likely won’t see a silver quarter in circulation, you might see one in the big box of coins you can get at a bank. It takes some patience, but if you want to have a pleasant treasure hunt, banks are an easy source for silver hunting.
Conclusion
Curious gold and silver hunters, after reading this article, should have a couple more ideas for where they can find their treasure. Here we reviewed landfills, old mine tailings, coin rolls, and a couple other places to seek out the next precious metal find. Armed with these unexpected places where you can find precious metals, the world is your oyster.