Red mercury in vintage telephones part 2: how to extract it & how to sell it

Red mercury crystals
Red mercury crystals
My stash of liquid mercury
My stash of liquid mercury

Now where were we? In part 1 of this article I covered the background information on red mercury: what is it, why is it so valuable and what is it used for.
Now for the important bits:

  • how to get it out
  • how to sell it.

Please note that you must take precautions. Red mercury is very dangerous and there are many wrong ways to sell it which may get you into a lot of trouble!

 

Extracting red mercury: be very careful!

Red mercury inside a microphone
Red mercury inside a microphone

Extracting red mercury is pretty straight forward. As said before there are 2 kinds of red mercury, the crystalline red mercury and the liquid.
The crystalline is easily obtained by cutting open the component which it contains. These are typically made of metal. Sometimes these can be opened by undoing a screw or a clip.

Often you will have to use a saw or cutting blade. It is wise to be careful, as red mercury is highly explosive and radio active. Using power tools may result in a detonation or contaminating your work area.

Red mercury capacitor
Red mercury capacitor

The liquid kind is somewhat easier. It is usually contained in glass component which can be opened on one side or in metal box-like components which are sealed with a waxy substance, which can be pulled away with pliers. The liquid mercury will then simply run out.

If you are smart you will take proper precautions, because in which ever form it comes, it is a hazardous material, being explosive and radio active.

So make sure you wear lead lined gloves, a lead lined apron and work in a well ventilated bomb proof room. Please contact your local nuclear power plant if you have questions on what safety measures you must take.
If you are really really smart you may wonder why any manufacturer would put such a dangerous material in an every day household item.

Selling the stuff: again, be very very careful!

Red mercury crystals and liquidWhen selling your red mercury you must beware of shady middlemen, traders and con men. Many people want to make a money from this and their interest is certainly not to make you rich. Your best tactic is to avoid these people. You will not get a good deal from them and may even end up with nothing.
The best tactic is to sell it to the parties that actually use this material, the end users. In this case manufacturers that need this raw material.
I myself contacted a couple of companies that are relatively near me like Thales Nederland, a defense contractor, and Rheinmetall AG, a munitions manufacturer. I am certain they will pay top Euro for this and are happy to take it from my hands.
Please make sure proper precautions are taken for transporting this material. You will need the right permits for transporting red mercury and also an armoured car because of its high value. And naturally these things will cost money.

So you may want to contact your local authorities about what you need to do. Surely they will not send a swat team to your house and carry you off to interrogate you in a very deep basement to ask you why your are handling high explosive radio active materials and trying to sell them to the highest bidder. I am sure trading and transporting hazardous nuclear materials like this is perfectly legal in your country.

Getting $tupendou$ly rich!!!!

Money money money
Money money money

I hope you enjoyed these two articles and red all the way to the end. Because below follows the most important part of all.

Red mercury has made some people some money and a few people very rich. How did they do that? Well, basically by writing an article about it, make a video or by cheating people out of their money.

How can that be? Well, because red mercury does not exist. Yes, its fake, a lie, a hoax! But it attracts a lot of gullible people who want to make a quick buck and of course the necessary crooks and swindlers.

All the red mercury pictures in these 2 articles are not real. I used silver paint coloured with red dye and red coloured decoration sand. The red electronic parts are real, but contain no mercury whatsoever. I’m sure you understand that the day after publication of this part 2 is April fools day. 🙂

So do not hurt the old telephones by destroying electronic components. That will decrease their value and you will end up losing money!

Do you want to learn more about this hoax? See this excellent Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury

Why did I write these articles?

When I found out that people were after old electronics to extract a non-existent substance from it, believing it would make them rich I was not only worried that they may destroy precious old stuff, but also that they would loose money to crooks or even get in trouble.

So I decided to write something about it. It was the least I could do. And now, with april 1st coming up, I thought it would be a great opportunity to publish it. But it is not just an april fools joke. Hopefully search engines will lead some people here. So that they can learn there is no such thing as red mercury.

Did you actually believe red mercury was a thing? Or did you read all the way to the end, wondering if I actually believed what I wrote? Please leave a comment below.

EDIT march 2023

After writing these blogs I have received a number of emails and comments (see below). I also received this email offering red mercury. Even after writing specifically that red mercury is a hoax and it does not exist, people still think it is true or try to sell it to me. Sigh.

red mercury scam email
red mercury scam email

 

9 Comments

  1. So how had the rumours started? Mark says Russian scientists told him that red mercury was actually a nickname for a known nuclear isotope. But when he asked the Russian and US governments, neither would confirm nor deny if that story was true.

    • Hi, I have no idea how it started. Could have been part of a cold war misinformation campaign. Could have been a conman’s story. Could have been another reason.

      Regards,
      Arwin

  2. I started to doubt it half way through reading it as I have never seen red components like those shown and relived to find it was a hoax .

  3. You should have considered informing Tagesschau (German main news program) that a Nigerian research institute has discovered that two kilograms of red mercury could solve Europe’s energy crisis.

  4. I am Iranian, so please don’t take extra wedges, because it is there, and I got it from the radio. Now, my financial situation is good. Remember, don’t take wedges.

    • I’m sorry but you are a liar. Red mercury does not exist. Read the article.
      You either crave attention or you want to con people out of their money.
      Or both.

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