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I was a biophysics grad student at the time of the Hunts' shenanigans. The lab I worked in used a lot of x-ray film for crystallography and electron microscopy
by OliverJones 10y ago
I was a biophysics grad student at the time of the Hunts' shenanigans. The lab I worked in used a lot of x-ray film for crystallography and electron microscopy. At that time x-ray film was basically silver halide stuck to plastic.
Our wizard lab tech cooked up a nice little electrolytic gizmo, involving a screen made of thin copper wire and a battery, and dropped one in each fixer bath we used to fix the x-ray film. The copper wire became coated with metallic silver.
The lab made thousands of dollars at the peak of the Hunt-induced silver bubble by selling that recovered silver. That was good, because the cost of film went completely nuts, and we were able to keep from blowing through our budget.
- musesum 10y agoHey, I was in that business, too! I walked around to all the photo labs and offered to take their used developer off their hands. Was still in high school at the time. Meanwhile, my Dad bought $1000 worth of quarters. Then he had us sort out all the quarters that were dated 1964 and before into a separate pile, as those quarters were 100% silver. After that, we sold the all silver quarters by weight. Forgot what the price was, but was worth the time.
- theandrewbailey 10y agoNot 100%, but 90%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_(United_States_coin)#Silver_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_(United_States_coin)#S... I will occasionally see some pre-64 quarters and dimes, and I often notice them because they sound slightly different (on account of metal content/weight) than post-64 ones.
- musesum 10y agoCool! I stand corrected.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]