As you can read in the following, it's an older post. I got my copy from Prodigy, where the chippers had their own section in collecting. But it's about silver strikes. I'm sure the values have changed, but they change daily, so whatever the spot silver market, it sould be valid, with the exception of the final money values.

THE FOLLOWING FILE WAS UPLOADED TO COMPUSERVE BY CHIP AND TOKEN COLLECTOR
LAUREN GUIDA, WHOSE FATHER ASSISTED HER WITH THE PROCEDURES OUTLINED HERE.

As some of you here are aware back in November 1995 a question arose
concerning the $10.00 silver premium tokens issued by the Hard Rock Casino
in Las Vegas. They unlike other casino issues were not stamped .999fine
silver. We decided a fire assay of some tokens was in order using the
procedures we described below.

ASSAYING

The first step is to melt your clean metal into an ingot mold. After the
bar has been cleansed in a pickle solution (dilute sulphuric acid), scrub
clean and dry the bar. Drill a small hole (1/8") into the ingot bar to obtain
enough slivers of the metal and weigh off exactly l gram. Weigh off 2.5 grams
of silver and place both the filings and the silver into a lead sheet
approximately 2 to 3 inches wide by 3 to 4 inches long by .010 to .014 inches
thick. Wrap the filings and silver into the lead foil and roll it into a ball.
Place this ball into a jeweler's cupel and with a jeweler's torch melt it
until you notice that the gold and silver have combined and are left as a
small button. The lead and copper in the alloy will be absorbed into the
cupell.

CUPELLATION

The idea behind cupellation is the removal of such base metals as copper and
lead from gold-silver alloys. The cupel is a porous cup usually made from
bone ash or magnesia material. The cupel, should be preheated just prior to
placing the lead button inside. If the lead button is put into a cold cupel
and heated up, it will tend to spurt and some loss may occur. The maximum
amount of lead needed to remove copper in alloys containing gold - silver -,
copper is twenty times the weight of the metal to be assayed. After the button
has cooled, remove it from the cupel, weigh it, and flatten it as much as
possible. Place the flattened button into a pyrex-type beaker. Into the
beaker add approximately 50cc of diluted nitric acid (one part water to one
part nitric acid) and heat up to the boiling point until the button dissolves.

After cooling, pour off the solution into a bottle which you should mark
"silver nitrate." Wash the residual gold left in the beaker with hot
distilled water and then pour off the water. Now add approximately 40cc of
concentrated nitric acid and heat again, boiling the solution for approximately
fifteen minutes. When cooled, pour off the solution into another bottle
marked "nitric acid waste" (it can be reused again in diluted form). Wash the
gold remaining in the beaker with hot distilled water two more times. Remove
the gold from the beaker and allow it to dry. The gold at this point should
be .9999 fine. The weight of this gold will now give the exact fineness of
your bar. If the remaining gold weighs .5625 gram then you have 13 karat
gold in the bar. Multiply the weight of your bar by .5625. You will now know
exactly how much fine gold you should recover from your bar. If, for example,
your bar weighs twenty ounces, then you should recover ll.25 ounces of fine
gold.

To calculate the silver content in the bar, you must have the following:

1. Weight of button after cupellation

2. Weight of the silver added

3. Weight of the fine gold

EXAMPLE:
Weight of button after cupellation 3.3500 grams
Less weight of silver added 2.5000
Equals combined gold and silver in alloy .8500
Less weight of gold .5625
Equals weight of silver in alloy .2875

If your bar were to weigh 20 ounces, then you should recover approximately
5.75 ounces of fine silver (20 x .2875).

Note: This is the basic procedure used for unknown gold silver alloys.
The reason for the addition of the silver is to make sure that our button
after cuppellation is no more than 25% or six karat fine gold, any gold
percentage higher than this makes nitric acid parting impossible. In the
case of our silver premium tokens we know before hand that they do not contain
anywhere near that percentage of gold, so addition of silver is not necessary.
It also allows us to cuppell a larger sample size close to four grams.
The math is adjusted accordingly.

Note: In this procedure you must have an accurate gram scale calibrated as
finely as possible, preferably in milligrams.

_______________________________

RESULTS OF THE ASSAY PROCEDURE:

Two $10.00 tokens were selected: one from the Hard Rock and one from the
Gold Coast Las Vegas. We also assayed a $40.00 silver premium token from
TropWorld Atlantic City. The tokens we used can be identified as:

HRLV 1 (Marv Weaver's Catalog Numbers)

GCLV 2

and Trop World Steel Pier $40.00.
As you may or may not know the construction of the $40.00 tokens is a one
piece stamping in .999 Fine Silver and 24Karat HGE (Heavy Gold Electroplate),
while the $10.00 tokens are a two piece stamping , the center .999Fine Silver
Token and the outer ring.

The outer ring of HRLV1 weighed 12.25 DWT(pennyweights) (1/20 of a troy oz)
and contained no precious metal.

The outer ring of GCLV2 weighed 11.85 DWT(pennyweights) (1/20 of a troy oz)
and contained no precious metal.

HRLV1 Center weighed 11.98 DWT and contained 11.83 DWT .999 Silver.
Actually the center was .9874 Fine Silver.

GCLV2 Center weighed 11.63 DWT and contained 11.27 DWT .999 Silver.
Actually the center was .9690 Fine Silver.

The $40. Trop weighed 34.60 DWT and contained 34.08 DWT .999 Silver.
Actually the center was .9850 Fine Silver.

Additionally the $40.00 Trop contained .0102 DWT .9999 Fine Gold.

At the Spot Gold and Silver Prices on Fri 1/12/96 of $5.55 silver and $399.00
gold the following are the bullion values.
HRLV1- 11.83DWT =.5915Oz Troy .999 Fine Silver @ $5.55 = $3.28
GCLV2- 11.27DWT =.5635Oz Troy .999 Fine Silver @ $5.55 = $3.13
$40Trop-34.08DWT = 1.70 Oz Troy .999 Fine Silver @ $5.55 = $9.44
$40Trop-.0102DWT =.0005Oz Troy .9999 Fine Gold @ $399 = $0.20 Total = $9.64

LAUREN GUIDA CC>CC #R-2434 & DAD