Hobby to a profession??

[Higgins94]

hi, have been facinated by gold + silver since i was a child and metal in general has played a big part in my life (im a welder + keen metal detectorist)
i have for the last couple of years been messing around with a homemade foundry, i have cast a few 1oz sterling silver bars, a couple of 999 gold bars and countless aluminium ingots, i have also done some refining (also very interested in chemistry) - i love it, it has become somewhat of an addiction haha.
how would i go about turning it into an occupation? if i wanted to sell bullion that i have cast would i be required to register with any organisation? would my bullion need to be tested for quality ? or could i just punch it with a serial number, fineness mark and logo and sell ? 
any info would be greatly appreciated 
cheers

[MJCOIN]

29 minutes ago, Higgins94 said:

hi, have been facinated by gold + silver since i was a child and metal in general has played a big part in my life (im a welder + keen metal detectorist)
i have for the last couple of years been messing around with a homemade foundry, i have cast a few 1oz sterling silver bars, a couple of 999 gold bars and countless aluminium ingots, i have also done some refining (also very interested in chemistry) - i love it, it has become somewhat of an addiction haha.
how would i go about turning it into an occupation? if i wanted to sell bullion that i have cast would i be required to register with any organisation? would my bullion need to be tested for quality ? or could i just punch it with a serial number, fineness mark and logo and sell ? 
any info would be greatly appreciated 
cheers

You could do worse than ask @BackyardBullion for some advice.  He should be able to answer most of your questions.

[sixgun]

From a silver bar point of view i would stick with 999 silver. This is the form of silver buyers are looking for these days, rather than Sterling.

If you make bullions products they do not need to be hallmarked. There is no legal definition of bullion but basically if you are selling a lump of silver which the buyer sees as and buys as a lump of silver then it is bullion. If you are making an art piece where the buyer sees it as an art piece and buys as such, then you need to get it hallmarked.
Then you would need to register with one of the assay offices. Then you would get a maker's mark. You can keep this yourself and add the maker's mark to the piece yourself or get the assay office to apply the mark.
You can get any stamp you like. A search of the internet will find companies which make punches for logo's, weights, purity mark stamps and so on.

There is also the issue of it being a business for tax purposes and the issues around VAT.

Edited March 8, 2022 by sixgun

[dicker]

There may be something in refining peoples silver to 999

I suspect a few people have .925 in many forms that they would like to have refined to .999

[Petra]

1 hour ago, dicker said:

There may be something in refining peoples silver to 999

I suspect a few people have .925 in many forms that they would like to have refined to .999

It’s quite difficult to turn 925 into 999, chemicals etc. needed. Not really something to do do in your kitchen!

[Petra]

10 hours ago, MJCOIN said:

You could do worse than ask @BackyardBullion for some advice.  He should be able to answer most of your questions.

 

10 hours ago, Higgins94 said:

hi, have been facinated by gold + silver since i was a child and metal in general has played a big part in my life (im a welder + keen metal detectorist)
i have for the last couple of years been messing around with a homemade foundry, i have cast a few 1oz sterling silver bars, a couple of 999 gold bars and countless aluminium ingots, i have also done some refining (also very interested in chemistry) - i love it, it has become somewhat of an addiction haha.
how would i go about turning it into an occupation? if i wanted to sell bullion that i have cast would i be required to register with any organisation? would my bullion need to be tested for quality ? or could i just punch it with a serial number, fineness mark and logo and sell ? 
any info would be greatly appreciated 
cheers

If you are looking at selling online etc. then people will be wary of buying something that is allegedly silver without any markings. It is quite simple to register at one of the hallmarking centres and if you are looking at quite a bit of production then not that expensive. You pay a registration fee and then so much per item. I think it is cheaper the more you send off. In this day and age I think most people want to see proof that something is what it is.

[Bigmarc]

19 minutes ago, Petra said:

It’s quite difficult to turn 925 into 999, chemicals etc. needed. Not really something to do do in your kitchen!

I looked into this a while back. I think it was a matter of applying for a licence on line with a small admin fee. Similar to getting a gun license. Some countries you can buy off the shelves but not here unfortunately. I have a fair amount of industrial scrap silver that I hope to one day refine (as a hobby) but the set up costs are too expensive so am just going to keep stacking it until it's worth it.