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A Brief History of Ledoux & Company In
1916, A.R. Ledoux, founder of Ledoux & Company stated the following when he
was retiring from the business. "Shall the Company's standards be
maintained, will its honorable career be perpetuated, will the name of Ledoux
& Company continue to stand for conscientious business methods and exact
technical work, and what can I do before I go, to secure a continuance of this
success and ideals?" What was so much a part of Ledoux & Company in
1916 and is now, after 90 additional years, still the mission statement of our
Company-that is to provide industry with accurate, unbiased results, and to
assure you that what we see is what you get!!
Started in 1880 by
A.R. Ledoux, the Company rented space here in New York City at 16 Cedar Street.
Most of its business in those formative years was devoted to consulting
services to the mining and exploration industry. Assay services were provided,
but were generally limited to gold and silver and some other basic base metal
elements that were common to the industry in the late 1800's.
In 1896,
the Company was incorporated and at some point, because of the need for larger
space, the Company moved to Spring Street and 6th Avenue. At this point the
Company became actively involved with marketing its assaying ability, which
became the mainstay of the Company fairly quickly, so that by 1916, the Company
had performed over 200,000 assays.
An interesting note is that
gold/silver assays were priced at $5.00 in 1916 and the average weekly salary
for an employee at the Company was approximately equal to one such assay. Of
course, today, that relationship does not exist.
In 1916, A.R. Ledoux
retired from the business handing the reins over to his oldest son. This
process continued for 3 more generations of Ledouxs' until Louis Andre Ledoux
who died in 1994 after a long illness. After this, Mr. Louis Pierre Ledoux,
Andre's father, decided that the Company's affairs should be managed by a
General Manager. Bruce E. Peterson, a long time employee and previously CFO,
was appointed as the first general manager and is still in that position.
Shortly after her brother’s untimely death his sister, Nicole Ledoux,
joined the company and continues the family tradition. .
A brief list of some noteworthy accomplishments might be of
interest to you.
Ledoux & Company analyzed the copper on the
Statue of Liberty and performed assays for the top of the Chrysler Building. It
is rumored that we also assayed the cables used on the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1896
an ad in Harper's Magazine advertised that Ledoux Chemical Laboratory declared
that Rae's Olive Oil from Italy was not adulterated by admixture with any other
oil. We also analyzed dust from Mt. St. Helens, metal from a lunar vehicle and
moon rocks. We were, in a small way, involved in the Manhattan Project, radio
chemistry and monitored water in the Hudson River when the first nuclear sub
docked there. We have also been asked to check coins from the Atocha, which was
a Spanish Galleon sunk off the coast of Florida in the 1600's. We have been
asked to authenticate Pre-Columbian artifacts.
Ledoux & Company worked
with Dateline NBC that aired a program about the dishonesty in selling
sub-karat jewelry in various New York jewelry stores.
In 1953, the
entire facility was moved from New York City to our present location in
Teaneck, New Jersey.
Fast forwarding to what Ledoux & Company is all
about today. The Company is made up of 3 main business units, Nuclear, Weighing
& Sampling and our Laboratory. 
WHAT WE DO The question is, "What do you
want and expect from the laboratory that you select to provide you with
analytical services?"
Knowing that assays can only be as good as the
sample submitted, you must expect and, yes, demand from whichever laboratory
you choose: That the results of assays are:
- Unbiased
- Accurate
- Timely
- Are reproducible if necessary
- And cost effective
You should expect from the laboratory that you
select to provide assays on lots ranging from a few pounds to those that may
exceed 10,000 pounds, and that they have the proper controls in place to
provide a level of confidence that you require.
When only a few grams
of sample determine the value of a shipment in the 10,000 or more pound range,
this is an extremely important matter.
For a laboratory to provide
you with accurate assays, you must provide a well prepared and representative
sample with proper instructions that should include, but should not be limited
to: Type of material (sample) being submitted Elements and ranges if known
Units that results are to be reported in Size of lot the sample represents Who
to invoice and who is to get reports of assays When results are expected Who to
contact with telephone numbers for questions All of the above help the
laboratory immensely in providing the correct assay in the least amount of
time, as time has become a very precious commodity for those involved with
completing transactions in our industry these days, and probably will be more
demanding in the future.
As certain methods cannot be "rushed", the
more reliable the information when the sample is received at the laboratory,
the more efficient and, hence, timely is the result. If you wish to receive the
correct result, you must help the laboratory help you. Getting it right the
first time makes sense for all parties.
Weighing and Sampling As it relates to our Weighing
and Sampling business unit, we maintain samplers and representatives who can
provide weighing and sampling services at most of the refineries in the U.S., -
certainly on the East Coast, in the Midwest and on the West Coast. These
refineries are generally in the precious metals industry. We also provide
representation for base metal concentrates, principally copper, in Canada and
other major ports around the world.
Also, we are registered
weighmasters for any materials that go into the Comex Exchange. If you have any
questions or comments, please make sure you speak to .Maria Soto
Laboratory
The fire assay section is equipped
with 2 gas fusion furnaces, 2 electric furnaces and 2 cupellation furnaces. Our
wet chemistry section is made up of a base metal department, a reforming
catalyst section, an automotive catalyst department and a Precious Metal
department.
On those assays which typically are in the trace to few
percent range, the departments provide the separation, then the solutions go to
our ICP department which is comprised of 3 ICP Emission Spec units and one ICP
Mass Spec unit.
For the higher grades, after separation, then
generally gravimetric methods for the precious metals, and titrametric methods
for the base metals.
We also have the capability to test for halides
with our IC equipment. We can also test for carbon and/or sulfur with our
Carbon Sulfur equipment.
Ledoux & Company also has an X-ray
Fluorescence Unit capable of fast, non-destructive qualitative to
semi-quantitative analysis. This helps to assign samples by identifying the
matrix and relative concentration of the elements present. Accurate
quantitative analysis can be accomplished if proper reference standards are
available.
In the spring of 2001, Ledoux & Company
acquired the laboratory business of Umpire and Control Services to broaden the
customer base.
A typical customer has lot sizes that warrant assays
that are not too expensive. UCS developed a method using microwave digestion,
then ICP to fill this requirement.
Other sample types include glass
samples from the Corning Glass Museum, water samples from engineering firms
concerned with corrosion products, and oil and scrapings for identification.
Laboratory services generally fall into 2 main groups-
1) party or
control assays and
2) umpire or referee assays.
Ledoux's
reputation as an umpire laboratory is well known to the industries that we have
serviced for so many years. For umpire assays, our methods are more rigorous,
generally involving different methods with different chemists responsible and
certainly more portions. As splitting limits have gotten so narrow over the
years, umpiring between them is becoming increasingly more difficult because of
analytical differences
. You can very easily see that only certain
laboratories with the proper resources will be able to provide what is
expected. As you would expect, the majority of our referee assays are in the
precious metal elements.
Ledoux & Company is an ISO 9001-2000
registered company since 2003. Having now been through three semi-annual
audits, we are keenly aware of what is expected as it pertains to documentation
and quality programs from a laboratory providing services on an international
basis. Whether or not being ISO certified is important to you specifically, we
cannot know, except to state that such certification implies that we have
methods and operational procedures that are written, and followed, and that
when change is necessary or errors/complaints occur, as they always do, that
such is documented and remedied if necessary.
We have always been
subject to some study because of our Nuclear services, and licensing
requirements, and having the ISO standard applied to our facility is something
that we are all proud of attaining and maintaining.
Also, to reiterate,
what has been stated before, Ledoux & Company hopes to be able to service
the groups that are in attendance today for many years to come with the same
accuracy, precision, ethics, lack of bias, and trust that have kept Ledoux
& Company in business for these 125 years.
We are
proud of our age and accuracy.
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