# Purchasing e scrap



## Chiptech81 (Mar 19, 2012)

Hi all
As i work for a computer maintenance company that also deal in e scrap, at the moment we sell the scrap to refiners etc, currently get between £4 to £5.50 per kg of pc mainboards, £9 or so per kg of pc memory, cpu's priced depending on what they are for example P4's £2.50 per kg, old ceramics £80 per kg.
It got me thinking if i was to offer my company the same prices to purchase the scrap for myself would there still be much profit to be had if i collected this and then went down the route of refining the scrap in large qty's?


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## Anonymous (Mar 19, 2012)

If you purchased everything at those prices,there would be very little profit left.


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## patnor1011 (Mar 19, 2012)

As Mic said. I would only add that price they pay reflect their ability to recover nearly every metal present be it copper, tin, aluminium, nickel, iron, precious metals, etc...
While you will never accomplish that profitably as hobbyist. 
This companies are even able to produce most of their own energy or electricity needed, by processing those.

However you may be able to generate some profit if you will be meticulously cherry pick only the best out of their pile.


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## ericrm (Mar 19, 2012)

Chiptech81 said:


> Hi all
> As i work for a computer maintenance company that also deal in e scrap, at the moment we sell the scrap to refiners etc, currently get between £4 to £5.50 per kg of pc mainboards, £9 or so per kg of pc memory, cpu's priced depending on what they are for example P4's £2.50 per kg, old ceramics £80 per kg.
> It got me thinking if i was to offer my company the same prices to purchase the scrap for myself would there still be much profit to be had if i collected this and then went down the route of refining the scrap in large qty's?



i dont know what the other are talking about
-€ 2.5 = $ 3.2676 for 1 kg of p4 cpu that a hell of a good deal,i dont know at how much you can sell them where you are...
but if it was me i would buy everything lol
i have often try to make deal with your continent but shipping in canada from europe is so costly...buy everything and find a cheap way to sell to canada ,lets do busine$$$ 8)


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## Claudie (Mar 19, 2012)

I think the others may have been referring to the PC main boards, that does sound like a hefty price for them. I also agree with what ericrm is saying about the price of the CPUs. Maybe the original poster misquoted the prices, as that doesn't sound right. :|


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## patnor1011 (Mar 20, 2012)

Maybe that is price of fiber cpu with copper tungsten heatsink. Heatsink weight is then about 70-80% from total weight of cpu. :?:


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## Chiptech81 (Mar 20, 2012)

patnor1011 said:


> Maybe that is price of fiber cpu with copper tungsten heatsink. Heatsink weight is then about 70-80% from total weight of cpu. :?:



I always thought the metal plate on Pentium 4's was aluminium

Just found a price list from a company in UK that buys e scrap, it was emailled to me 09/2011

Pentium Pro £105
AMD K6 £70
P4 £2.50
Cyrix £85
Intel MMX £40
Intel Pentium £75

all prices are per k/g

I did sell some p4's on ebay and got a better price, 1.4kg of p4's got £28. I emailled the buyer who said he would still make a good profit on refining them, how much is there to be had from these? I know everyone on here is secretive of actual yields, come on let me know....please


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## ericrm (Mar 20, 2012)

Chiptech81 said:


> come on let me know....please


whhhaaaaat :shock: :x 
i know your new but this is a no no
yield are the only thing that most of us here protect... you have to realise that it is a lot of work to get accurate yield,cost a lost of time and money



Chiptech81 said:


> pentium Pro £105
> AMD K6 £70
> P4 £2.50
> Cyrix £85
> ...




and at that price you can still sold them higher to me :mrgreen:
edit i just realyse that you tell 28euro on ebay ,well i understand that you arent interested to sell to anyone but just in free yield ... well ... just what i said on top


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## Chiptech81 (Mar 20, 2012)

ericrm said:


> Chiptech81 said:
> 
> 
> > come on let me know....please
> ...



So what prices would you pay for them?


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## Claudie (Mar 20, 2012)

I am not sure what the metal on a P-4 is but I thought it was Nickel, it is too heavy to be Aluminum. I think the P-4s are probably the lowest yielding of the popular processors. Most of the Gold is in the plating on the pins which are smaller than pins on other processors. In my previous post I was mistakenly thinking of the P-3 processors when I posted. Even those don't have much Gold they also don't have the heavy metal backing either, so they would be a better buy by weight. I usually torch the pins off of both types of processors and save the pins up until I have enough to process, while throwing the rest of the processor, (the fiber part) into a box until I figure out what to do with them. I think Sam has a video on his site (Gold-N- Scrap) that shows one way of processing these. Nickel is up to about $8.50 per pound, so if the metal on the P-4 is Nickel, I would think you could make money buying them at the price you quoted.


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## patnor1011 (Mar 20, 2012)

I was only guessing as that makes sense to me. It is a heat spreader, heat shield so logically the best guess is copper/tungsten.


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## Chiptech81 (Mar 20, 2012)

Thanks for the replies will take a look at the vid.


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## Geo (Mar 20, 2012)

i dont think its nickel because its non magnetic.any high nickel alloy will be magnetic to some extent.


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## Claudie (Mar 20, 2012)

I found the datasheet. it is Nickel plated Copper. 
http://download.intel.com/design/Pentium4/datashts/30056103.pdf

EDIT: Section 3.1.7


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## Geo (Mar 20, 2012)

yep, if it had been high nickel alloy it would have some magnetic properties. i double checked one of mine to see if my magnet is attracted, nothing.


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