Dentaltown October 2020 - 27

A DV E R TO R I A L

Myth: An in-office
refinery rep can give an
accurate assessment just
by looking at the metals.

This one is as common as it is criminal.
How many times has a middleman broker
type walked into your office and offered
his services to assess your scrap? He'll
look at it, use a nice digital scale, read
off some weights and measurements to
you and tell you exactly what you've got.
Then he'll offer you an enticing stack of
cash, sweep up your scrap and leave you
thinking that you got a pretty accurate
assessment and fair dollar value. You may
not have. In fact, you may have received
as little as 30% of the actual melt value.
Unless he dragged in an induction furnace, homogeneously melted everything
down, collected pin samples, created,
cleaned and prepped the ingot, then
assayed and analyzed your scrap in
multiple ways, you may as well have
thrown darts at a board or used tarot cards.
The composition of your metals cannot
be visually estimated. That white-looking
metal could be palladium, selling for
$2,000 per ounce, or it could be silver at
$28 per ounce, or even nickel, which is
worthless. To account for that uncertainty,
the cash offer has to be low.
In a similar vein, some refiners have
partnered with dental supply distributors,
which on paper seems like it should add
transparency to the process but in reality,
there's just more hands in the pot, more
fees and less return for the dentist. In
fact, some of our customers have noticed
fees up to 38% from refiners who have
partnered with dental supply distributors.
It may seem safer and more secure
to physically hand a man your scrap and
receive cash the next moment than to
send valuable materials through FedEx,
but in the same way your patients trust
your expertise and clinical knowledge
of dentistry, doctors place their trust in
established refineries. Just like patients
read reviews and listen to word-of-mouth,
dentists should look at refineries with
track records of good returns, positive
reviews and transparent policies.

DT1020_ADVERTORIAL_Weinberg_Refining_MM.indd 27

Myth: All refiners
are the same.

This one hits home for me because
I've helped shape my family's business
to be significantly different from the
competition, but I won't try to win you
over. Frankly, I don't have to. I encourage
dentists to ask their peers, consult the
Dentaltown message boards and get
feedback directly from doctors who have
seen results translated into significant
dollar amounts.
However, I want to point out that
companies with superfluous reps, brokers
and subcontractors-not to mention any
company that touts itself as having the
"lowest fees"-don't always have the
most accurate and transparent scrap
return. Many customers over the years
have told us their lowest scrap return has
come from companies who sold them on
unrealistic low fees.
Dentists should never go with the first
refiner they come across. Instead, visit
each website, compare accreditations
and known associations, read reviews
and consult forums.
In the end, the decision will always
be partly trust, but the other part of
that decision should be made through
information.

Myth: The process
seems cumbersome
and complicated.

I won't speak to what other companies
do, but I can speak to the process I've
helped create, which I consider to be
common sense and customer-centric. We
can either email you a free FedEx insured

shipping label to attach to any box or we
can send you a box with an insured return
FedEx label. That's it.
Once the package is received, the
scrap will be weighed, logged into the
system, melted and assayed all under one
roof. The results will all be outlined in a
detailed settlement sheet that discusses
the amounts of gold, platinum, palladium
and silver recovered in the scrap lot.
If you like the prices of the metals
on the day we receive your lot, you can
lock those prices in. If not, we will use
the London PM fix on the day the assay
is complete. It's your choice.

No mysteries

No dentist should feel like he or she is
making an uninformed decision, and
there shouldn't be mysteries in something
as straightforward as cashing in your
scrap metal.
This year has been hard enough without adding insult to injury over something
that could be a significant boost to your
available cash on hand, and a worthwhile
endeavor to come back to.
You're going to keep practicing, which
means you'll keep collecting valuable
metals. Find a process that's convenient, a
system you've verified through colleagues
and peers, and stick with a refiner you trust.
Dave Weinberg joined the family business in 2005.
He has a master's in business and operations and
has helped Scientific Metals continue to reduce costs
and streamline processes. Scientific Metals remains
a family owned and operated company that works
with dentists, dental labs, jewelers, manufacturers,
wholesalers, and more all across North America. For
more information, including independent case studies
conducted by dentists on scrap metal offers, and live
precious metal pricing, visit scientificmetals.com.

9/18/20 1:01 PM
http://www.scientificmetals.com
Dentaltown October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown October 2020
