Selling electronics scrap for gold.

[Ash_Williams]

I tore up a bunch of computers and have a bunch of motherboards and RAM and processors and such. I want to sell them but I don't want to mess around with Ebay. There is one local guy who is supposed to by them (he says he pays $85 for a pound of 486 processors), but I can't see to get in touch with him.

Anyone ever sold this stuff? I'd prefer to just make one sale to one person rather than messing around too much. I don't know who to sell to, however. I'm in Ontario Canada right now. There's a few pounds of processors and RAM, a big cardboard box full of mainboards (probably 50 lbs worth), a stack of about 30 CD/DVD drives, 10 or 20 hard drives.. stuff like that.

I will search around but I was hoping someone might have dabbled in this business before and might have some recommendation.

[ShortJohnSilver]

I tore up a bunch of computers and have a bunch of motherboards and RAM and processors and such. I want to sell them but I don't want to mess around with Ebay. There is one local guy who is supposed to by them (he says he pays $85 for a pound of 486 processors), but I can't see to get in touch with him.

Anyone ever sold this stuff? I'd prefer to just make one sale to one person rather than messing around too much. I don't know who to sell to, however. I'm in Ontario Canada right now. There's a few pounds of processors and RAM, a big cardboard box full of mainboards (probably 50 lbs worth), a stack of about 30 CD/DVD drives, 10 or 20 hard drives.. stuff like that.

I will search around but I was hoping someone might have dabbled in this business before and might have some recommendation.


I deal in this stuff. If you don't need the money and have storage space just hold onto it, it will increase in value.

Right now I pay $2.25 per lb for motherboards/PCI cards etc. RAM (any kind, 30-pin, 72-pin, DIMMs, SIMMs, etc.) I pay $8/lb delivered to me.

CPUs are extremely variable, $85 per lb on solely 486s is a little low but within range.

If you take the little motherboards off the back of the drives, they pay the same as the motherboards; then the rest of the drive has value as aluminum scrap.

Any chance you have PentiumPro's? I pay $10 each for those.

[beefsteak]

Any chance you have PentiumPro's? I pay $10 each for those.

There's a Canadian lad who helped pioneer a gold recycling forum several months ago.
He lives up there I think in BC, but I don't rightly recall. Anyhow, you can reach him
by contacting the other co-owner of his website, Steve Sackett; email: lazersteve@goldrecovery.us
He probably won't be paying retail, but his money is go and his bids are solid.

FWIW,
I was buying PPro's hand over fist @ $17.50 ea. eighteen months ago.

Those among us who know how to process/refine them will tell you their intrinsic value in gold alone is $44.82 per (with today's PoG of $1,394 t/oz.)

On the low side, 2 private assayers concur that approximately 525 - 526.7 ppm in each one.

Each weighs 87.37 grams unprocessed -- give or take a few milligrams-- and contain approx 1gram of 24K gold on and throughout that particular chip.

Just didn't want to see Ash get screwed, that's all.

Ash,
the guy who told you to hang on to all your chips because they are only getting more valuable is giving you the best advice out there. Might want to consider it.

beefsteak

[ShortJohnSilver]

The people that I have spoken with or read about on forums, indicate that there is about .4g per Pentium Pro, and that is from the LazerSteve guy.

in any case, gold is likely to go higher so don't be in a rush to sell.

[Ash_Williams]

Ok, I'm looking at a few options now. I will find that recycling forum.

I found that I can sell the more unique chips to collectors for a good price - I only have three unique ones though. No pentium pros unfortunately.

I'm sure gold might go up, but that potential is coming up short vs the annoyance of having this stuff around. It's a very clumsy way to hold PMs, and I don't have all that much anyway. I may just buy some "real" gold with whatever cash I get out of this. And if something works out and I get a good price for these, I can always tear apart a bunch more computers.

I guess hard drives have no value other than aluminum? I heard they had platinum on them but never got any real numbers. I suppose I could rip those boards off and just throw them in my aluminum pile if that's the case.

Also what do you do with power supplies? Just plain scrap? I took one apart once and it wasn't worth the effort to try to separate the copper or aluminum. I have 40 or so of them, I kept chucking them in a pile, it's stupid and ugly...

[beefsteak]

Power supplies?
A couple, 3 things: 1) the electromagnet (ugly squarish boxy part) contains copper windings. Break off of board, and place into your polluted copper pile for sale at the scrap yard.
2) check the power supply for any "nibs"/contact points on the ends of any switching relays. A computer tech (retired) showed me the platinum he's saved from just removing 2 - 4 of those per power supply.
3) clip off the wiring, either burn the insulation off first, or toss-as is- into your polluted copper pile as #2 copper. The former is smelly, the latter is easier and doesn't alert the neighborhood to what you're doing with your stash.

Now, after 1990, the most loaded disk drive platters are on Laptop HDDs. As little as 5%, as big as 35%. Now, thanks to Intel, they are plating them with Ruthenium. Doesn't make them any more valuable to recycle. Also, be careful. These disks shatter easily from Laptops b/c they are on a glass substrate as opposed to platinum aluminum ones.

Good Luck!

[beefsteak]

I deal in the stuff......The people that I have spoken with or read about on forums, indicate that there is about .4g per Pentium Pro, and that is from the LazerSteve guy.

in any case, gold is likely to go higher so don't be in a rush to sell.


I believe you deal in the stuff. Just for the record: I was quoting:
Peter H (.5267 g/per Pentium Pro) and teabone (.525 g/per PPro) on the above yield stats I posted from GRF.

In any event @ $1394 gold
$44.82 x .5267g per PPro= $23.60 refined gold value using Peter H's "old assay"
and
$44.82 x .525g per PPro= $23.50 refined gold value using Teabone's assay work.
and
$44.82 x .4g per PPro= $17.93 refined gold value using your baseline estimate of gold contained. You're paying $10 each.
and
$44.82 x 1g per PPro = $44.82 refined gold using the high end reported assay by "X" above.


Whenever I observe variable bid/ask spreads such as these, a couple, three things cross my mind.

1) The assayer--whoever they are--aren't reporting what THEY are actually recovering, their fading their own results' numbers based upon a single assay of a single unit. Micro digestions are a bitch, and so is the recovery of ALL the gold in the micro-digested item. Methods and mileage vary. ;D

2) The refiner is closer to the obvious desired outcome of getting full retail price for the gold contained in any XYZ electronic part which a refiner can harvest.

3) When people are using benchmarks such as the 3 listed in this post and the full gram result listed in the first post I made above on this topic, each of the first 3 persons apparently "fades" his own source as to what is actual content in order to protect their buy/sell or buy/refine profit margins.

4) The wider the "fade" between reality and what they are paying for intrinsic value, the further away from the refiner/access to the retail-full price buyer of the refined goal.

That's the most direct explanation I can see for the variance in results vs offers to buy.

This is the trickles all the way down through the scrap metal industry profit model.

The young lad I referred you to up there in Canada, Ash, does his own refining. And his gold results are beautiful. Why not consider asking him to custom refine for you, returning your gold to you, and that way you get the gold results minus his fees and you both are winners?

beefsteak

[ShortJohnSilver]

I believe you deal in the stuff. Just for the record: I was quoting:
Peter H (.5267 g/per Pentium Pro) and teabone (.525 g/per PPro) on the above yield stats I posted from GRF.

Whenever I observe variable bid/ask spreads such as these, a couple, three things cross my mind.



(some snipped)

The reality is that yields can vary for any of a number of reasons.

Sometimes different shifts were heavier or lighter on the gold usage. Sometimes Intel changes their process mid-stream on something and you end up with less gold on later CPUs than earlier ones, even with the same process and part number.

And further, it is expensive to do an assay - the only reason you are even seeing numbers on the PPro is because they are a huge outlier in terms of gold content for CPUs; so much so that people who are doing it at the home refining level are able to get somewhat accurate results.

You are right, however, scrap metal dealers depend very much on "asymmetric information" - them knowing far more about what you are bringing in, than you do.

It's like trying to buy a new car - the car salesman sells cars 250 days a year - you buy a car once every few years; who is going to win over the long term?

[Ash_Williams]

The young lad I referred you to up there in Canada, Ash, does his own refining. And his gold results are beautiful. Why not consider asking him to custom refine for you, returning your gold to you, and that way you get the gold results minus his fees and you both are winners?

The problem with having him refining, or just selling to him, is shipping fees. It's much more expensive up here. Back on my Ebay days I could send a parcel across the border and down to Texas if I wanted for less than it would cost to send next door. And the father it goes up here, the more pricey. Anything BC to Ontario or vice versa is going to be a killer, especially with 60 or so lbs in a big box. It cost me around $30 just to have a pistol shipped here from BC in a small aluminum case.

So if I find someone local, vs shipping, I'm already ahead $30 to $60.

I saw the prices offered on that electronics recycling forum, and they look good, so I think I will post there and see if there is a local buyer.