computer and gold

I recently went down to the comp tech class at my high school. All I can say is ca-ching. The teacher had what he called a "crap box". This thing is a 4' by 5' by'4 box filled with stuff that was deamed unrepairable. It contained motherboards, video cards, processors, memory sticks, very old server and pre-286 computers. It also contained a variety of old hard drives, floppy's, cd-roms, eproms, and just a bunch of great stuff. Just to make it better, the teacher gave it to me FREE.

Some of you probably go to some surplus auctions to pick up computer equipment for a low price to dismantle for circuit boards. When you do go auctionering ( bad wording I know) keep three things in mind which will help you get more stuff to work on. (1) Pay attention to who buys the equipment at auction and in large quantity. Often these people are buying computers or related items just for a few working parts and units. When (no if's about it) you get to know them, offer to pick up their scrap after they are through with it. I get a lot of circuit boards this way. (2) Make offers to the other buyers for what they may not want in the lots that they bid on and bought after the auction. Lots of times I have other bidders just give me oddball electronics they don't know about and don't want to haul home. Finally, (3) hang around after the auction and after most of the people have left with their stuff they bought. It's unethical but often bidders abandon extra items they don't want or simply don't pay for. Check with the auction management about it and offer to haul off any material they may get stuck with at any time. The last auction I went to I bought one pickup truck load and had two more given to me. Good Luck!

Some of you may take the trouble to try to work down some of the different plastic connectors in computer equipment to recover the gold flashed or plated on the surface of the pins. The amount of gold there is very low in all types of connectors but it does vary in quantity between each type of connector. One type of the female edge card connector on circuit boards has a somewhat higher gold content than some other types. These connectors are usually mint green in color (most common color), baby blue or a sky blue, and rarely black, light brown or white. They are usually found in backplanes for mainframe type equipment or other specialized electronics and not in PC's. The point here is that the plastic used for the connector is fairly brittle and you can break the plastic easily enough with the right hammer to break out the gold pins. To break them apart even easier put the connectors in the freezer for a while. The colder the better!!!!!

I shipped out about 1,000 pounds of stripped circuit boards (fingers removed) to Windfield Refining in MA. They purchaced them oughtright for 55 cents per pound (minus shipping charge). They give the option of refining your material and then deducting the refining charges from the metals recovered, or purchasing outright. For small lot sizes or low grade material, they can come in handy with their outright purchase option when refining charges would ordinarily eat up all the value of precious metals contained.

hi, the Gold content varies per type of PC board . Values range between
ten cents and $1.25 worth of Gold for every pound of boards. If you
see visible gold it is about one micron thick and specific gravity of
gold is +/- 19 grams per cubic centemeter, so do the Math.

From what I have been reading, the boards are worth an average 2000 dollars per ton, less refining costs,and shipping,etc. which might be 700-1000 dollars or more, and the more you can give the refiner at once, the better for you, you just have to watch out for those shipping and other costs amongst other things. I still have to visit a couple refiners in the Chicago area and get some specifics. I only have maybe 12 boxes full of boards and a coffe can of gold fingers and some cpu chips.

collectables:

I found on Ebay somebody selling an electronics recycling CD for a hundred bucks so I emailed them and asked about it. I also mentioned I had torn some circuit boards out of our company's old IBM Mainframe model 4381 but could not find much gold inside. This guy told me the chips inside the 4381 are actually worth more for their collector value than the gold values,He has requested I send him some pics of the boards. I think I will probably order his cd set of 2. Is there anybody else in northeast Illinois who tries to recycle electronic scrap,maybe we could hook up? I did notice that somebody posted Midwest Refining as being a good place to take your scrap circuit boards? Turns out ,they are only about 40 miles from me so I will go there and see what I can find out. I have maybe 300-400 pounds of boards now but my employer just put a sign on the junk bins saying to keep out, company property, etc. so guess that ends my supply of scrap at work.

I bought an e-book, and the auther in there says that, well here is the excerpt. "IBM MODEL 4381, which is called a MCM CHIP. Each model 4381 contains from 10 to 40 MCM CHIPS. Each of these MCM CHIPS contains $20.00 in scrap gold. (see diagram of MCM CHIP) This chip is approximately a 2 5/8 inch square. It has a black background, and blue squares. Each blue square has a small black circle in the center."

It would be a good thing to know what all of the different gold chips are worth. I have some from the old TRS80 on up through 486, plus some from industrial control boards, even a tiny one from a Polaroid camera.
But, which ones have a decent gold content, more than plated legs?
Thanks and God bless, Jim
	 
Hi Joe,
Indeed those CPU'S are in hot demand on eBay. Search for "scrap gold", and you should find something there to compare to. Same for those hard drives, check eBay under "hard drives". The nice thing about selling at these online auctions is that the buyer pays for the shipping. There is, however, a fee for listing your items.

In order for you to make "some" money in scrap,as a back yard recycler
You will have to make friends with the local Licenced Scrap Dealer and
them sell to him/her. You will have to research the economics of this
arangement. The scrap purchaser will always mis-inform you as to
values. I know, I have Paid out Thousands of dollars in "School-fees"
This is not explained when you buy some ones book on recycling
We as the small guys should join together and form a Co-op for
every ones benifit.

end collectable chips:

http://www.dansdata.com/magnets.htm