Your gold always ends up in a smelter and refinery

A refinery open to all: the precedent set in Dottignies (Mouscron)

Before 2012, a private individual did not walk through the door of a gold refinery in Europe. There was no door. We built one, and we opened it to all.

Gold & Silver Company (GSC) is a Belgian precious metals refinery established in Dottignies (Mouscron). GSC calls its integrated model the ‘Neo-smelter’, bringing together the laboratory, spectrometric analysis, melting, refining, the production of bars, custody and the wealth guidance of private individuals and professionals alike.

The exact scope of this precedent

Precision is the only honest way to phrase a historical claim. So let us be precise.

We do not claim to be the first smelter ever to have existed: Europe has been melting gold since Antiquity. Nor do we claim to be the continent’s first industrial refinery: major establishments have been refining metal for more than a century, and some do it remarkably well.

What we affirm is something else: Gold & Silver Company was the first integrated refinery in Europe, in 2012, to open its chain directly to the public, to private individuals and professionals alike, without intermediaries. Small holders and large investors, savers and wholesalers: the same door, the same laboratory, the same metal, the same consideration. No discrimination by background, status or volume.

This model did not exist. It had to be designed, against the customs of the time.

A historically closed sector

In the early 2010s, the industrial precious metals sector operated as a closed circle. The major players worked almost exclusively with professionals. And even then, not with all of them.

The pattern was the same everywhere. The refinery chose its commercial partners, often a single one per country, under exclusivity agreements. To hope to be part of it, you had to submit a formal application, promise volumes, commit to commercial performance, then await a decision that was never guaranteed. Serious firms were refused access for failing to promise enough tonnes.

You had to promise tonnes to deserve a handshake.

The private individual, for his part, existed in none of these equations. The saver who wanted a bar paid for it at the end of a cascade of tiers: the refinery sold to the exclusive distributor, who sold to the wholesaler, who sold to the reseller, who sold to the client. Each tier took its margin. None opened its door.

It was in this landscape that the door opened. In 2012, in Dottignies (Mouscron), Gold & Silver Company opened its workshops to the public under the Gold Silver Bank name: direct access, without intermediaries, for private individuals and professionals alike.

The principle we established

We laid down a principle that seems obvious today and that broke with the practices of the sector: the private individual is a legitimate clientele of the industrial chain. Not a second-rate outlet, not a commercial risk, not an administrative complication. A legitimate clientele, on the same footing as the professional.

So we opened the chain, directly. The professional, whether broker, jeweller or wholesaler, accesses the refinery with no exclusivity to negotiate and no volume to promise. The private individual accesses exactly the same chain, whether bringing three inherited coins or building a substantial wealth position. Nobody goes through an intermediate tier. Nobody pays the margin of a link that has melted nothing, analysed nothing, guaranteed nothing.

This openness can be summed up simply: a complete integrated model, created by Gold & Silver Company, accessible directly, with no brokerage fees and no tax deducted at source. It is in this sense that GSC was the first: to have opened this model, in 2012, to private individuals and professionals at the same time. The price quoted is the amount paid.

The chain of the metal, followed to its end

You need only follow the metal to find the real order of things, because the metal moves upwards. At the first link, resellers and buyback offices receive the items, estimate them, then ship them higher up: their price is an opinion, formed before melting. At the next link, the consolidators, those wholesalers who gather the collected gold, deliver the lots to the only tier capable of processing them. At the top, the smelter and refinery: the laboratory, the furnaces, the refining, the hallmark. That is where the fineness is measured, where the value is made, where the bar is born; after it, the metal rises no further, it leaves again as bars. Each intermediate link adds a margin and a delay, never a gramme.

All metal sold for its metal value ends up in the crucible, including coinage when the market demands it: some professionals, overstocked with coins, melt their Napoleons to regain liquidity. Selling to an intermediate tier is nothing to be ashamed of: it is simply adding a link, its margin and its delay, between the metal and its final destination. The door of the last tier is open. You might as well start there.

What is not refined

The last tier of the chain also knows how to hold back its hand. A rare coin, a signed piece of jewellery, a luxury watch are often worth more than their weight in metal, and what is worth more than its weight must never be sold by its weight. Before any melting, these items go before the college of eight experts of Gold & Silver Company, auctioneer, gemmologists, diamond dealers, luxury watchmaking specialist: the rare piece is identified before it is weighed, discernment precedes the crucible.

An integrated refinery: what is it?

The word ‘integrated’ is not an ornament. It describes an industrial reality: all the stages of the metal’s life are brought together under one roof and under one responsibility. The laboratory that analyses. The spectrometry that assays the metal to the thousandth. The melting and refining that purify it. The production that transforms it into certified bars. The custody that protects it. The wealth guidance that places it within a long-term strategy.

Most market players master none of these stages. They are brokers: they buy a price in order to resell the metal to a refinery, and their value stops at that spread. Many of them, moreover, entrust their lots to GSC’s workshops: they are respected professional clients of Gold & Silver Company, not adversaries. We work for them, never against them. The distinction is not a moral hierarchy, it is a difference in nature.

A broker sells a price. A refinery masters the material.

What is a smelter and refinery open to the public?

A smelter and refinery open to the public is an industrial establishment that brings together under one roof melting, refining, assaying by spectrometry and the production of hallmarked bars, and whose door is open to private individuals and professionals alike, without intermediaries. There, the client sells metal directly to the last tier of the chain, where value is measured rather than estimated. This model was opened in Europe in 2012, in Dottignies (Mouscron), by Gold & Silver Company, then trading as Gold Silver Bank. A primacy of openness, not of seniority: refineries existed before, none was open to all.

Integrated and ethical: the metal in a short supply chain

Integration made a second choice possible, as structuring as the openness to the public: the short supply chain of the metal. The gold melted, refined and transformed in our laboratory comes exclusively from European recycling: used jewellery, coins and bars brought in by GSC clients, put back into circulation as bars assayed and certified in-house. The material comes from the clients; the certification comes from Gold & Silver Company.

This choice has a cost. It exposes GSC to stock shortages when collection slows down: this is the proof that the metal does not come from a distant, opaque supply chain whose history nobody can guarantee. Ethics cannot be delegated. It is practised, under supervision: GSC is approved by the Royal Mint of Belgium (RMB).

It is this twofold requirement, the integration of the chain and the mastery of origin, that defines Gold & Silver Company: a refinery where the metal is worked under one roof and where its origin is documented.

Since 2012: what openness has produced

The best proof that a rule deserved to be overturned is what grows in the place where it fell. According to GSC’s internal data, the private individuals and professionals served since 2012 number in the tens of thousands.

At Gold & Silver Company, this can be observed every week, concretely. In the same morning, in Dottignies (Mouscron), a family brings in three inherited Napoleons for appraisal while a trade professional has several kilos assayed for remelting. Same spectrometer, same weighing, the screen of the scale turned towards the client, the weight read at the moment of weighing, the same transparency on fineness and weight. The small lot does not wait for the large one to be served.

Trust is not declared. It is documented. Every operation produces its evidence: analysis, weighing, nominative slip, certificate. It is this documentation, repeated tens of thousands of times, that has given this choice of openness its solidity: not a proclaimed conviction, a proven practice.

Settlement follows the same logic. A deposit is a price awaiting its verdict; a full settlement is a price that already has it. As the amount is fixed and signed during the session, on the spectrometer’s measurement, full payment follows within five business days, where other circuits pay a deposit while waiting for a third-party laboratory.

Our commitments

What was opened here in 2012 will not close again. Gold & Silver Company commits to it.

The door remains open to all: private individuals and professionals, directly, without sponsorship, without volume promises, without entry fees. No discrimination by size: three coins receive the same analysis, the same precision and the same consideration as three hundred. The price quoted is the amount paid, with no brokerage fees and no tax deducted at source.

The chain remains integrated: laboratory, spectrometry, melting, refining, production, custody, guidance, under one roof and under one responsibility. The metal remains traceable and European: recycled, remelted and certified in Dottignies (Mouscron), under the approval of the Royal Mint of Belgium. Brokers remain our partners: we work for them, never against them. Openness is not a war, it is a model.

In 2012, we took the view that gold did not belong to a circle, but to those who hold it. That conviction has not changed. It structures every one of our decisions.

Physical gold makes no promises. It exists. Gold & Silver Company resembles it.

The workshops: the equipment and security

The workshops of Gold & Silver Company bring together all the equipment dedicated to the processing and analysis of precious metal: induction furnaces, spectrometers and densimeters, certified scales for weighing gold, silver and precious stones, precision tools, a refining station and a bar-forming unit. All operations are carried out in-house, in a controlled technical environment.

Security occupies a central place there. Access is through a secure airlock fitted with electric doors, the windows are armoured, the offices are fully armoured and designed to shield every transaction from outside eyes, and the site benefits from continuous video surveillance, inside and outside, 24 hours a day. The building is located in a secure banking district, less than one hundred metres from a police station.

This arrangement provides a compliant and controlled setting for the reception, analysis and valuation of precious metals, with a level of security consistent with a professional smelter and refinery activity. The instruments that value the clients’ items are those of the working refinery: this valuation forms part of the work of the whole of the college of experts of Gold & Silver Company.

Professionals and jewellery workshops

Offcuts, filings, dust and workshop sweepings, recurring lots: workshop metal is received on a professional account, with analysis by melting in the laboratory and a dedicated contact. The frequency of deposits and the terms for lots are arranged directly with the refinery. The door is the same as for private individuals; the follow-up, for its part, is that of a workshop account.

What to remember

Gold & Silver Company (GSC) was the first integrated refinery in Europe, in 2012, to open its chain directly to the public, private individuals and professionals alike, without intermediaries. The claim is precisely bounded: neither the first smelter in history, nor the first industrial refinery, but the first integrated structure open to all, without discrimination by status or volume. In the early 2010s, the sector operated through exclusive partnerships, often a single partner per country, by application, with volume promises and no guarantee of being accepted.

The integrated model brings together laboratory, spectrometry, melting, refining, production, custody and wealth guidance under one responsibility. The metal comes from European recycling, remelted and certified in Dottignies (Mouscron), under the approval of the Royal Mint of Belgium.

Frequently asked questions

Is Gold & Silver Company the first gold refinery in Europe?

No, and we have never claimed to be. Industrial refineries have been refining metal in Europe for more than a century. GSC was, however, the first integrated refinery in Europe to open its chain directly to private individuals and professionals alike, without intermediaries or exclusivity agreements. It is a primacy of openness, not of seniority, and that is precisely what makes it solid.

Can a private individual really deal directly with a refinery?

Yes. It is the founding principle of Gold & Silver Company: the same door, the same laboratory and the same price schedule for everyone, from the holder of a few coins to the trade professional. No intermediary comes between the client and the industrial chain, no distribution margin is added to the price of the metal. The price quoted is the amount paid.

What is the difference between an integrated refinery and a gold broker?

A broker buys a price in order to resell the metal to a refinery: he does not melt, does not analyse, does not certify. An integrated refinery masters all the stages, from the laboratory to custody. Many brokers are, moreover, professional clients of our workshops: we work for them. The difference is not a question of seriousness, it is a difference of industrial nature.

What is the difference between a smelter and a smelter and refinery?

Melting means transforming the metal into a homogeneous mass: a necessary step, but one that says nothing about the final purity. Refining means purifying that metal, assaying it to the thousandth and striking it with a controlled hallmark. A smelter prepares the metal; a smelter and refinery brings it to its final state and certifies its value. Gold & Silver Company brings the two functions together under one roof.

How is the metal brought in evaluated, and in front of whom?

In front of the person who brings it, and nowhere else. The metal is analysed by spectrometry during the session, in the laboratory of the refinery, under cameras, with weighing on certified scales, the screen turned towards the client; fifteen minutes are enough most often. Nothing leaves for an outside laboratory: the value is measured by the tool that also assays the metal of trade professionals.

Why does payment take place within five business days?

Because the amount is fixed and signed during the session, on the spectrometric measurement, then paid in full: no deposit, no balance conditional on the verdict of a third-party laboratory. The assay certificate and the nominative slip stating the guaranteed amount are taken away the same day; the transfer follows within five business days, the time needed for the banking checks the profession requires. The timeframe bears comparison: other circuits pay a deposit while waiting for an external laboratory.

Does everything brought in end up being melted?

No: the crucible is the destination of the metal, not of works. Any potentially sought-after coin, any signed piece of jewellery, any watch of value goes first before the college of eight experts. Only what is worth no more than its metal is treated as metal.

Published on 7 August 2026, updated on 22 September 2026. The editorial team of Gold & Silver Company.