| Where are you located? | On the east coast of the United States, near Boston, Massachusetts. |
| Do you have a retail storefront? | We do not have a retail physical storefront. The vast majority of our business is by internet and direct mail. |
| Do you do custom work? | Yes that is a significant part of our business. See Photo Gallery or send us an Email with your ideas. We do custom single pieces and complete or partial element sets. |
| Do you have privacy and security policies? | Yes, see Privacy and Security Policy. |
| Are you open to suggestions? | Always! Let us know your comments by Email. Many of our products and ways of doing business were developed from customer comments. |
| Do your prices change? | For most items, prices are stable. On certain items, such as precious metals, prices are affected by fluctuations in the market price of the raw metal. Those prices will change up/down over fairly short periods of time. Our general pricing policy is that prices are subject to change without notice. |
| How do I place an order? | See Ordering Info. |
| How do I find out the status of my order? | Please give packages at least a week to arrive (two weeks for international orders). After that, you are welcome to send an email and a status will be provided. Please remember though that we have no control over your order once it is shipped. |
| Who are your suppliers? | Our supplier base is a key part of our business. It took a lot of time and effort to find the best suppliers to supply these products at high quality and low cost to our customers. As a matter of business practice we do not reveal business information like this. |
| Do you buy metals from individuals? | Yes we do, depending on what you have, what our needs are, and whether we can verify the identity and quality of the metals you may have. Send an Email indicating what you have to offer. |
| What if I want to return something? | Let us know by Email before returning. We can work something out. Please note that certain materials cannot be returned due to shipping restrictions. |
| What shipping methods do you use? | US Postal Service (primary), UPS and Fedex, depending on cost and/or customer request. |
| For your items that are offered on Ebay and your website, which one should I buy from? | It depends on the buying experience that you would prefer. Prices are usually a little lower on the website and the shipping is a flat $3.50 to a USA location. Prices on Ebay are usually a bit higher (to cover Ebay fees) and shipping/handling is higher and adjusted for actual shipping/handling costs. On Ebay you have the Feedback option where you can post feedback describing your overall buying experience from us. Ebay offers buyer protection above and beyond Paypal's buyer protection, which you get with either method if you use Paypal. |
| Are these metals good investments? | HUGE question, but a popular one. This one needed a separate page! See Investments. We do not sell these metals for investment purposes, they are mainly intended for collectors, scientists and industrial users. |
| Why are the precious metals you sell priced higher than spot market prices? | Because most of these pieces require labor to make, like arc-melted pellets, rods, ampoules and so on. Labor is time, time is money which adds to the raw material cost. For raw materials like metal powders there is a handling and repackaging cost which adds cost above the spot market price. |
| Are there other shipping options? | Yes, see Shipping Options. Priority mail, registered mail and insurance are some of the options available, at an added cost. |
| Do you ship internationally? | Yes, many of our customers are overseas and we welcome that business and will work with you as needed. Some items offered on this site cannot be shipped internationally at this time. |
| How long will it take to ship a package to ________? | We do the best we can to ship orders as quickly as possible. You will receive an email confirming your order and another email when your order actually ships. This is all we can do. The rest is up to the carrier. First-class mail usually takes only a few days but every now and then it can take a few weeks due to delays by the post office. We cannot control the delivery of your package once it is shipped. International shipments have more potential problems. Customs agents in the recipient's country can delay your package for days or weeks for many reasons. Also since those shipments are dependent on postal systems from two countries it adds to the risk of a delay or something going wrong with the shipment. To help ensure that your package arrives, you may want to consider registered mail service. We have yet to have a registered mail package lost. |
| Is everything in stock? | Over 90% of our products are in stock or can be made within a day or two, except as noted in the product description. |
| Can my shipment be tracked and can I get a tracking number? | This can be done a number of ways, for additional cost. Delivery confirmation provides a tracking number. Registered mail provides a reliable tracking number that follows the package from shipment to delivery including international shipments. All UPS and Fedex shipments automatically come with a tracking number. If your shipment has a tracking number we will provide it to you. |
| Do you sell items that are not listed on your website? | Yes on occasion we do. Sometimes we receive a batch of a new material and haven't added it to the website yet. Or, we may have a limited supply of something. Let us know by Email if you are looking for something. We may have it! |
| Are you going to be around for a long while? | Absolutely. The business started in early 2003 and has been running and growing since then. We continually work behind the scenes to develop new products and reduce the cost of current products. That will never stop. Some of our customers have been with us since the start of the business. We deal with our suppliers and customers to maintain long-term relationships. We don't push products onto customers to make a quick profit - our products sell themselves. |
| Can you sell in large volumes? | Yes we can. Let us know your requirements and we will provide a volume discount, quotation and expected delivery time. We have an excellent supply chain and can ramp up volume for most materials fairly quickly. |
| Do you provide volume discounts? | Yes, let us know what you would like and if the size of the order is large enough we may be able to provide a discount. |
| Do you recycle your packaging materials? | Yes we do! Boxes, bubble wrap and packing peanuts are recycled as practical. In fact, we have never had to buy new packing peanuts. |
| Why charge a flat $3.50 for domestic shipping? | It was the easiest thing to do. Right now the Paypal shopping cart function doesn't allow for calculation of actual shipping cost based on total weight of items in a package. Rather than us calculating shipping cost, and you wondering what the shipping cost will be, it's $3.50 per order. Boom. Simple! International shipping is extra, please inquire. Extra shipping costs for heavy items are factored into those item's purchase cost. |
| Are some of the materials you sell toxic or hazardous? | Yes a few of the materials offered are toxic and hazardous. Materials that are toxic or hazardous require disclaimers to be signed and returned by a potential buyer before we will release those materials for shipment or pickup. |
| My question is not listed here... | Just Ask! |
| What if you are out of stock on an item? | Over 90% of our items are in stock, or can be made within a day or two after receipt of order. But occasionally a stockout will happen. We will inform you of the stockout and will try to minimize the impact to you by shipping it separately at our cost or providing a prompt refund if requested. |
| What if I want to cancel my order? | For stock items, if you inform us before your items are shipped, we can cancel your order and provide a full refund. A Paypal or credit card refund will be done instantly; payments by check or money order can be refunded by returning the check/money order or by issuing another check if those funds have been deposited. A small fee may be incurred in that case. |
| Can I trust Metallium to fulfill my order? | We can say Yes, but we have no business doing that. That's a decision you make as the buyer. We try to build your trust by: - Using Paypal and credit cards as the preferred method of payment. These come with certain levels of buyer protection to help you build confidence that the transaction will be safe and secure, and that you have certain levels of protection in case something goes wrong. - Guaranteeing that what you order is what you will receive. - Stating that we have been around a while and will be around for a long time. - Having a return policy and stating what we will do if certain scenarios happen. - Not using aggressive sales tactics to push products to maximize profits. We prefer to let our products sell themselves. - You can view actual feedback that our Ebay customers have left us. See Ebay Feedback |