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MAN: Five...
Four...
RICH: I've heard precious metals are used in rockets,
so I've come out to the Mojave Desert to learn more.
MAN: Three...
RICH: You don't have anything that's made out of like platinum
or anything like that, do you?
Gold, silver, anything like that?
MAN: Two...
RICH: From the research I've done,
I'm focusing on the metals in the combustion chamber.
That's the part of the rocket
where the fuel basically explodes.
MAN: One, fire.
RICH: Holy [bleep].
NARRATOR: There's a new breed of treasure hunters,
and they're looking for precious metals.
And you won't believe where they find them.
DAVE: I am a gold nut.
(grunts)
I'm willing to risk everything
Whoo-hoo!
If this thing blows up in my face...
Holy--!
I am out a thousand dollars.
Rich: A Vault! I have to get into this thing
I can't stop myself.
If I know that there's a deal out there to be made,
I'm gonna take advantage of it.
DIEGO: I've been looking at those hoops in your ears
DIEGO: This is the biggest risk I've ever taken.
DAVE: We did good.
NARRATOR: Once they find the metal, they melt it...
DAVE: Platinum meltdown, baby.
NARRATOR: ...to make big, big money.
RICH: Big Payday's here.
RICH: I clearly found the rockets,
now I need to find someone who can help me find
where the precious metals are inside.
When are you launching yours?
MAN: We're waiting for some parts to come up.
RICH: What kind of parts?
MAN: That's a snap ring.
RICH: What's it made out of?
MAN: It's metal.
RICH: What kind of metal?
MAN: Steel.
RICH: What are you making?
GIRL: We're erecting the launch tower.
RICH: You're erecting a tower?
Do you have to lubricate this thing?
MAN: No.
[laughter]
RICH: So, what are some of these parts made out of?
I know that some of the best material
to be able to use in these rockets is maybe platinum,
so that they can take the heat, they can take the pressure,
things like that.
FRANK: Unfortunately at our level
we use like a composite material.
The more precious materials,
that was all done back in probably the '70s, '80s
with the government rockets.
Today they're getting away from that.
RICH: So I came all the way out here just to hit a dead end.
This sucks.
DIEGO: I'm on my way to House of Trophies.
I know that modern trophies are made mostly of plastic.
But I know there's precious metals in the older trophies
from the '40s, '50s, '60s.
How great would it be to find a nice, heavy silver trophy?
Every pound that it weighs would be $350 bucks in my pocket.
Hey, how you doing?
SAUL: Good.
DIEGO: Just looking for some trophies.
SAUL: Well, you've come to the right place.
DIEGO: Yeah, I see that you got a lot of them.
SAUL: What kind of trophies are you looking for?
Are you having a special event coming up?
DIEGO: I guess vintage trophies.
SAUL: Oh, you're a collector?
DIEGO: Yeah, yeah, I'm a collector.
Whenever I'm out prospecting,
my first strategy is to not reveal
that I'm after precious metals.
If the seller thinks he has something of value to me,
then it tips the hand in his favor.
So I'm looking for ones that are metal.
SAUL: Let me show you what I have here.
DIEGO: Alright.
SAUL: So I have this cup.
It was brought back in 2000.
DIEGO: How much would you sell that for?
SAUL: I collect them myself, so...
DIEGO: Oh, really?
SAUL: Nothing I can offer you.
DIEGO: The interesting thing about trophies
is that they belong to a specific person.
It's somebody's bragging rights.
So if that person isn't around anymore
there could be a trophy made of precious metals
just stashed in a closet somewhere.
Who collects these things besides you and me?
SAUL: Well, people like myself.
There's a lot of people, there's a lot of places
that just push them aside.
DIEGO: Like who?
SAUL: Bowling alleys, maybe a tennis club
that had a lot of trophies.
Nowadays they've transitioned over
from a nice, big cup into plates.
So now they give them a nice crystal plate.
DIEGO: Right.
SAUL: So they've done away with the metal trophies.
Just have them stored somewhere, forgotten.
DIEGO: Hmm.
Now my goal is to see if I can't find something
that's been forgotten about.
Something that might be worth thousands of dollars.
DAVE: Today I'm headed to a place called Camera Corral
in Coeur d'Alene and talking to the owner about his filters
on his photo-processing equipment.
I don't know anything about the filters,
except that they recover the silver used on photo paper.
But if there's silver in there, I'll find a way to get it.
That's why I'm an expert.
DAN: Hi, there. DAVE: Are you Dan?
DAN: I am. DAVE: I'm Dave.
DAN: Nice to meet you, Dave. DAVE: We talked this morning.
DAVE: And I'm just really looking forward
to see what you got.
DAN: Basically, we take the waste from the machines
and dump them in this tank.
DAVE: Looking at this yellow piece of plastic
with two taps on the top,
no one would ever think that there's up to $1,200 or more
in silver in this thing.
I want to walk out of here today with this filter.
So can we come out here and kind of run through
some numbers and scenarios?
DAN: Sure.
Cash would be nice.
DAVE: How much cash? DAN: Uh, $250.
DAVE: $250? DAN: $250.
DAVE: I just kind of had a thought
that you might want some money.
Do we have a deal?
DAN: We have a deal.
DAVE: I've made my living being able to do
a better job than anyone else.
Dan said he usually gets about 11 ounces of silver
from these recovery filters, but I'm pretty sure I can get 50.
DIEGO: So I found this racquet club
and I talked to a guy who tells me
that they've got a box of some old junk,
maybe some trophies, and they're gonna throw it away.
SELWYN: So all my stuff is back here.
There's a few boxes,
but I haven't actually looked in them in a long time.
DIEGO: Okay, just back here?
SELWYN: Just give me a call if you need me.
DIEGO: Okay.
Oh!
Made in Taiwan.
I notice the weight, the way it's shining,
the way it feels.
I have to test it, of course.
But this could be silver!
SELWYN: Okay, what do you got?
DIEGO: Eh, you know.
It's just a couple old pieces I found in there.
Just kind of a mixed bag of things here.
SELWYN: Wow, I haven't seen these pieces in a long time.
DIEGO: So what do you want for this?
SELWYN: Um, how about $150?
DIEGO: Uh, you know, I was thinking more along the lines
of like $45 or $50.
SELWYN: That's kind of low.
DIEGO: Selwyn, he's been an instructor for decades.
He probably knows people that won the trophies in these boxes.
I've got to remind him that he said this was junk
he was gonna throw away.
50 bucks for someone to take your garbage away for you
is a pretty good deal.
SELWYN: But it's still good trophies though.
DIEGO: Yeah.
SELWYN: They may have been sitting,
but I wasn't actually going to throw them away
after I looked at them.
But I'll tell you what...
How about $75?
DIEGO: $75?
SELWYN: Sounds like a good price.
DIEGO: Eh.
Okay.
Maybe I can do that.
$75 bucks, thanks a lot.
SELWYN: Alright.
DIEGO: Nice talking to you.
It's kind of funny, finding a trophy made of silver
is a trophy in itself.
I'm sort of winning my own award,
when I find one like that.
RICH: So Frank has told me that this guy named Waldo
has over 30 years in the rocket world.
He said if anybody's gonna have some stuff
that I'm gonna be looking for, it's probably gonna be Waldo.
RICH: Are you Waldo? WALDO: Yeah, I'm Waldo.
RICH: Waldo, I'm Rich, I talked to you earlier, I called.
WALDO: Oh, yeah. Hi, Rich, how's it going?
RICH: I'm doing good.
At this point my questions of not having rocket parts here
have been answered.
There's a giant rocket right in the driveway.
WALDO: This is the car I'm building right here.
RICH: No, no, no, no. I'm from Detroit.
I know what a car looks like, this is not a car.
WALDO: Well, it's a different type of car.
It's a car designed for ultimate speed.
It's got a rocket engine in the back.
It's designed just to set speed records.
RICH: Well, show me what you've got.
WALDO: Basically, it's just a big needle,
I guess you can see that.
RICH: So with this car you're trying to break the record?
WALDO: Right.
RICH: The speed record. What's the record now?
WALDO: The record is currently held by Great Britain,
it's 763 miles an hour.
RICH: So what kind of speed do you think
that this is going to go, then?
WALDO: Oh, this is designed to hit 2,000 miles an hour.
It'll burn out.
RICH: 2,000 miles an hour? WALDO: Exactly.
RICH: How much does it cost?
WALDO: It's going to cost a fortune.
I'm looking at $1.75 million.
Every dime I make goes into this thing.
RICH: Waldo needs the money,
so if I can throw him some money in his pocket today,
I can walk away with rocket parts.
So this umbrella-looking thing here,
this is the part that would contain
some type of a, maybe a precious metal?
WALDO: Oh, I'm sure.
It's probably braised with gold, platinum, silver.
This engine in 1950 cost $9 million.
RICH: If you were to sell this
how much would you sell this for?
WALDO: This motor is absolutely priceless.
See, the thing is, without this motor I don't have a car.
RICH: So what do you have that is for sale?
WALDO: Well, I'll tell you what.
I've got a lot of stuff I've stashed through the years.
If there's anything you're interested in, bring it back.
We'll parlay. Okay?
RICH: Deal.
This is the coolest stuff anybody that's into rockets
could possibly have.
Who's got racks and racks of rocket parts in their house?
Now we're talking.
This is where all the metals are going to be held.
This is just a scaled down version
of the one that Waldo showed me outside on his rocket.
And it's heavy as hell.
Alright, where's Waldo?
I think I got some pieces.
WALDO: Yeah, you do.
That is a combustion chamber.
And this is the de Laval nozzle.
RICH: That's the nozzle that goes on the end, right?
WALDO: Yeah, you put the two together,
and you've got a rocket engine.
RICH: I'm assuming this is made out of platinum?
WALDO: I don't know about that, but I can guarantee you this,
I can't sell you this. Okay?
This is still proprietary technology.
And the military would have a hard time
with me selling you this.
And the reason is, there's some things you shouldn't have,
and this is one of those things you shouldn't have.
Simple as that.
This is a catalyst pack
that's used for a hydrogen peroxide rocket engine.
RICH: Hydrogen peroxide?
So if I cut myself on this
I could clean myself at the same time?
WALDO: If you put that kind of hydrogen peroxide on your hand
it'd eat your hand off.
What happens is the hydrogen peroxide would come into here,
and it passes through these silver catalyst screens.
RICH: Waldo told me that when the hydrogen peroxide
passes through the screens,
the chemical reaction creates a huge amount of force
and steam comes out of the back of the engine.
WALDO: These are pure silver in here, all these screens.
RICH: These? WALDO: Right. Mm-hmm.
RICH: If just five pounds of that were silver,
that's a $2,000 payday.
So let's make a deal on this, then.
WALDO: Okay, I would probably, you know, take $1,500 for it.
RICH: That's a bit more than I was thinking.
I could offer you like, probably about 500 bucks for it.
WALDO: Ho, yeah, right.
RICH: Listen, you need to make some money
to be able to finance your rocket here, right, your car?
WALDO: Yeah. RICH: Your rocket car.
RICH: I don't see anybody lining up in the driveway
to buy your stuff, so here I am.
How about $850?
WALDO: Yeah, I'm thinking more like about 1,000 bucks.
One large would be fair for this.
RICH: I'm willing to take a gamble in buying this thing.
Just because of the sheer weight of it.
RICH: This is what I can do.
I'm willing to pay you 1,000 bucks.
WALDO: Okay. RICH: Okay.
RICH: But you got to help me get the parts
out of the inside of this thing.
WALDO: I'll take it. Let's do it.
RICH: We'll do that? WALDO: We're on.
RICH: Deal.
If I can get Waldo to help me get this stuff out of here,
it's worth $1,000 to me.
WALDO: We're going to have to cut this weld off
all the way around, then pull the thing apart.
More than likely the screens are under compression.
Why don't you give me that grinding wheel over there,
and we'll start cutting it.
RICH: It's man-time now. This is like, ooh, ooh, ooh!
Here we go, man. Let's tear this thing apart!
WALDO: Okay, hit it again.
Hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it.
Okay, here it is, here it is, take it off. See?
And what's inside here, see how those screens are?
There's a lot more in here than I thought there was.
RICH: I don't really want to say too much in front of Waldo,
but as I'm picking these things up,
they have a lot more weight than I anticipated.
My $1,000 is not looking too bad now.
WALDO: Well, thank you very much.
This rocket car is all I've been doing for 30 years.
I don't drink, I don't smoke. That's my vice.
And I'm going to keep at it until I get it running.
RICH: Waldo is one of those people
that I'm really glad to have met.
One of those people that are really passionate
about what he's doing.
To bring America back into the forefront
and say, hey, look what we did.
WALDO: I'm not just building a land speed car.
I'm building and American icon.
And you just helped today, you and your thousand bucks.
We'll get those tailfins done.
RICH: Awesome.
To me that's just one of America's heroes.
DIEGO: I've got the chalice, now I need to test it
to make sure that it's actually silver.
First I scratch the silver on the touchstone,
then I apply the acid test.
It's turning blue.
I know I have silver,
but it doesn't tell me what the purity is.
The purity has a huge effect on what it's worth.
For all I know, it could be silver-plated.
The trophy isn't going to fit in the melting furnace.
So it's going to need a little help.
Don't lose any of it.
I know I'm destroying a perfectly good chalice,
but it's my trophy now.
And the only trophies I care about
are the ones shaped like silver bars.
DAVE: What am I going to do with this thing?
I'm pretty sure the silver recovery filter
has 50 ounces of silver inside, and that'll be a $1,200 payday.
That's almost five times the $250 I spent on this thing.
No way.
I cannot get this plastic cap off.
This canister's really starting to *** me off.
[grunts]
It's full of steel wool.
Now I'm starting to understand how this works.
The used chemicals from photo printing
contain dissolved silver.
And when these chemicals flow into the filter,
the dissolved silver reacts with the steel wool.
And that reaction causes the silver to solidify
and accumulate in the filter chamber.
I don't have the resources to extract this silver
from the steel wool, which means I might be screwed.
Right now, I'm really not happy.
[bleep]
RICH: Alright, heading to the melt.
I've got these silver screens
that I was able to get out of this rocket engine.
It's going to be a good day.
I think I got a good melt going on.
I think with only putting $1,000 into this
I should come out on top.
FERNANDO: How's it going, Rich?
RICH: Fernando, what's up, buddy?
FERNANDO: Hey, buddy, good to see you.
Filters, huh?
RICH: These are out of a combustion chamber.
Are we ready to "rock it"?
FERNANDO: Let's rock it, man.
I think we're ready to go, man.
RICH: Woo-hoo. Look at that.
That looks beautiful.
FERNANDO: Alright, buddy.
Here we go.
SIMON: What's up, Rich? How are you, man?
RICH: What's happening, man?
SIMON: Good to see you again.
Man, that's a good size bar.
You're about a little bit over six pounds.
It's about three kilos.
RICH: So what's the purity?
SIMON: Calculating.
You have 82.5% silver.
Here's the weight, the percentage.
After everything is all said and done,
you're going to get about $1,570.
RICH: I can deal with that, I can deal with that.
SIMON: 13, 14, 15, 50.
$1,570, Rich.
RICH: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.
I've invested 1,000 bucks into this.
So I made a profit of $570.
Not a bad deal.
Thanks, guys, we'll see you next time.
SIMON: Thank you, Rich. Take care.
DIEGO: I've only got 75 bucks invested in this chalice.
If purity is high, I could make a great payday.
If not, mmm.
FERNANDO: You actually did a really good job
of beating this thing down.
DIEGO: I'm good at smashing things,
not playing tennis, honestly.
FERNANDO: That's pretty intense already.
DIEGO: Yeah, it is.
FERNANDO: Just give it a little stir.
DIEGO: It's like coins falling out of a slot machine
right here.
FERNANDO: Money. Come on.
DIEGO: Sweet.
Oooh!
FERNANDO: Here you go, Diego.
DIEGO: What's up?
SIMON: How are you, dude? DIEGO: Good, how you doing?
SIMON: Good, good. What you got there?
DIEGO: Well, my old tennis trophy.
SIMON: You don't look like much of a tennis player to me.
DIEGO: I'll kick your ***. [laughs]
SIMON: What old man did you beat to win this tennis trophy?
[laughs]
1,571 grams.
It's almost like three pounds.
DIEGO: Wow.
SIMON: Must have been a heavy trophy.
DIEGO: Yeah, I've got this big, heavy silver bar.
But it all comes down to the purity.
SIMON: Alright, let's see what we got here.
DIEGO: I love it when I see that one high peak
on Simon's analyzer, because that means this is going to be
a high percentage of silver.
SIMON: 75.74% silver.
DIEGO: Really?
That's actually more than I thought it was going to be.
SIMON: Not bad, not bad.
We got $757 dollars.
DIEGO: A $75 investment for $757 payday.
That's 10 times my money.
Excellent. Thank you very much, sir.
SIMON: Congratulations, my friend.
DIEGO: Always a pleasure.
SIMON: Now go serve some aces out there now.
[laughs]
DAVE: I've been trying to extract silver
from this photo-printing filter.
And since I can't separate the silver
from the steel wool myself, I've got to pay to have it done.
The lab will use cyanide to dissolve out the silver.
The cyanide dissolves the silver,
and leaves the steel wool behind.
Then the silver is recovered in crystalized form.
If this isn't enough silver, I could really be screwed.
Mr. Gomer.
GOMER: What do you got for me today?
DAVE: Oh, you got to save my butt.
GOMER: Uh-oh. Okay, well, let's get it cooking, then.
Oh, boy, not even an inch deep.
DAVE: Don't lose any, I'm already deep into this sucker.
That's some nasty-looking stuff.
Why is it that color?
GOMER: It looks hideous.
DAVE: These bars are the nastiest-looking things
I've ever seen.
They're discolored and misshapen.
I don't know what they are.
If nothing else, it's metal.
GOMER: See you later, Dave.
DAVE: See ya.
RICK: What the heck?
This is the same material, like three little pours?
DAVE: No, it's one pour.
RICK: They look dramatically different.
So, sir, there is a total of 8.5 ounces.
DAVE: Yeah, but give me the bad news now.
For these guys to be able to do this kind of a project,
the refinery's fee is 50% of whatever my total is.
RICK: $95.
And I'll give you 100 bucks.
I mean, I'm feeling pretty bad for you right now.
DAVE: I'll take it.
I'll need a coffee on the way home.
RICK: Yeah, there you go.
DAVE: This is one project where I was real cocky
thinking that I could recover some more silver than Dan,
and proved myself wrong.
I'm bummed.
RICK: Sorry, Dave. DAVE: Thanks.
RICK: Alright, good luck.
NARRATOR: Rich shot for the stars,
and at the melt got $1,570 from silver rocket parts.
They cost him $1,000, so he made a profit of $570.
Diego melted down someone else's old chalice for $757.
After the $75 he spent, his trophy was a profit of $682.
Dave got silver from a photo filter.
He got $100 of silver.
But after spending $250, he had a loss of $150 bucks.
RICH: So you've been going to college for this?
MAN: Yeah, I'm a major in astronautical engineering.
RICH: What year are you in?
MAN: I'm a senior, I actually graduate in two weeks.
RICH: There's a whole lot of brainiacs out here, huh?
MAN: They're all rocket scientists.
RICH: So I'm probably the dumbest one
on the grid out here today, huh?
MAN: Just when it comes to rockets.
RICH: Right.
I noticed you guys are in college.
So, you know, I may be able to teach you guys a thing or two
about drinking beer anyway.
That's where my expertise comes in.