# List of Items That Contain Precious Metals



## goldsilverpro (Jan 10, 2010)

*SCRAP ITEMS THAT CONTAIN PRECIOUS METALS*

*1) Jewelry and Dental*
a) Karat Gold
b) Sterling Silver
c) Gold Teeth and Plates
d) Platinum - Pt/Ir, Pt/Ru, etc.
e) Gold-Filled
f) Buffing Dust
g) Filings
h) Floor Sweeps
i) Carpets
j) Traps or Settling Drums and Sludges
k) Dental Amalgam
l) Cyanide Bombing Solutions

*2) Coins*
a) US 90% Silver
b) US 40% Silver
c) US War Nickels
d) Silver Bullion Coins and Bars
e) Old US Gold Coins
f) Gold Bullion Coins and Bars
g) Canadian 80% Silver
h) World Silver Coins

*3) Consumer*
a) Gold Filled Eyeglass Frames
b) Silverware, etc.
c) Gold plated plumbing fixtures - faucets, etc.

*4) Electronic*
a) Personal Computers
b) Circuit Boards
c) Fingers
d) Circuit Board Trim
e) Router Dust
f) Backplanes
g) Mainframes
h) Gold Lids
i) Old Gold IC’s
j) CPU IC’s
k) Hybrid Packages
l) Hybrid Circuits
m) Plastic DIP’s
n) Ceramic DIP’s
o) Lead Frames and Trim
p) TO5’s and TO18’s
q) TO3’s
r) TO92’s and LED’s
s) Relays
t) Thick Film Circuits
u) Thin Film Circuits
v) Pins
w) Connectors
x) Platinum Group Scrap
y) Silver Plated Wire
z) Silver Capacitors
aa) Palladium Chip Capacitors
bb) Gold Backed Silicon Wafers and Chips
cc) Switches, Etc.
dd) Tantalum Capacitors
ee) Silver DMSO Solutions
ff) Solder Preforms – usually Au/Sn or Au/Si

*5) Plating and Coatings*
a) Gold Plating Solutions
b) Silver Plating Solutions
c) Other PM Solutions
d) Drag Out Solutions
e) Gold Ion Exchange Resin
f) Wipes
g) Danglers and Nodules
h) Liquid Gold Containers
i) Plating Salts
j) Filter Cartridges
k) Gold Stripping Solutions
l) Reject Plated Parts
m) Silver Anodes

*6) Electrical*
a) Large Silver Contact Points

*7) Telephone*
a) Wire Relays – Palladium points
b) Other Relays
c) Copper Sticks with heavy gold plating every few inches
d) Cell phones

*8 ) Brazes, Pastes, and Solder*
a) Circuit Board Solder from Wave Solder Pots
b) Braze and Thick Film Pastes
c) Silver Solder and Brazes
d) Gold Solder and Brazes

*9) Photographic*
a) Medical X-ray Film
b) Industrial X-ray Film
c) Litho Film
d) Miscellaneous Film
e) Silver Flake
f) Hypo Solutions
g) Steel Wool Canisters
h) Ion Exchange Resin
i) Emulsions

*10) Jet Engine*
a) Gold Brazed Stators
b) Gold Brazed Stator Segments
c) Gold or Gold/Palladium Brazed Twin Rotor Blades
d) Gold/Platinum Pitot Tubes
e) Gold Fuel Manifolds
f) Gold Fuel Plumbing
g) Silver and Silver/Palladium Stators
h) Silver Brazed Stator Segments
i) Miscellaneous Aircraft Parts

*11) Automobile*
a) Headlamps
b) Oxygen Sensors
c) Spark Plugs
d) Catalytic Converters

*12) Catalysts*
a) Catalytic Converter Catalysts
b) Ethylene Oxide Silver Catalysts
c) Petroleum Catalysts

*13) Mining Materials*
a) Gold Nuggets
b) Gold Dust
c) Gold Ore
d) Gold Amalgam
e) Dore Bars
f) Black Sand

*14) PM Refinery Scrap*
a) Silver Chloride
b) Slags
c) Crucibles
d) Refiner's copper based bars

*15) Miscellaneous*
a) Evaporating and Sputtering Chamber Scrap
b) Silver Plated Copper or Brass
c) Button Batteries
d) Military Silver Batteries
e) Military Salt Water Conversion Kits - Silver
f) Silver Solder Brazed Heat Exchangers
g) Platinum and Pt/Rh or Pt/Ir Thermocouple Wire
h) Platinum Lab Crucibles
i) Gold, Silver, or Palladium Leaf
j) Solid Silver Wire
k) Sputtering Targets
l) Costume Jewelry – Gold or Rhodium Plated
m) Memory Disks – Gold and/or Rhodium Plated
n) Computer hard drives


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 10, 2010)

I don't think it would be consumer items because a lot of the stuff is not done by consumer and they are trade specific. My guess is you are going to want to make this as specific as possible aren't you?


***Never mind forget the suggestion it's not that important***


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## zamistro (Jan 11, 2010)

More detail please: what telephones have palladium points and copper sticks with heavy gold plating? What is a steel wool canister?


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 11, 2010)

It's just a list. I don't have the time right now to make it detailed. One of these days. I have thought about it. All 3 of these items have been discussed on the forum. The first 2 are contained in old telephone switching equipment. The last is used to remove silver from photo fixer solution.


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## Platdigger (Jan 14, 2010)

Hi Chriss, you mentioned "Memory Disks – Gold and/or Rhodium Plated"

What were these? Where were they used?
Thanks


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 14, 2010)

These were memory disks used on some computers in the 70s. If I remember right, they were about 1/4" aluminum with a cobalt or nickel magnetic layer plated on them. A final precious metal coating was used to protect the magnetic layer and prevent oxidation. Gold and/or rhodium plating was commonly used. It seems to me that some of these were as large as 48" in diameter, although most were much smaller.

You've probably seen photos of the memory units of some of these computers. Some had a number of disks stacked up inside of a chamber. Sort of looked like an old jukebox that played 78 RPM records.


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## ander (Jan 15, 2010)

covers. the white one has magnetic ring, so I'm confused. The transparent one was used in some type of disk, the diameters are like 16-20inch. Unfortunatery I got rid of aluminum disks.


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## Platdigger (Jan 15, 2010)

Chriss....I scrapped some.....aww man
they are gone
I hung on to them for a time, thinking there might be something good on them.
Thinking about it though, I think these were from the 80s, so perhaps not the same. They were big though.


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 15, 2010)

Platdigger, my friend,

They weren't gold, of course, or you would have surely noticed. Could have been rhodium. It seems the Rh ones had a bluish cast to them. A partner of mine had previously owned a company that plated these discs. I think his Rh plating bath was the largest one in the U.S., at the time. I know they had some problems with the PGM discs, because pure PGMs tend to polymerize organics out of the air and a brownish coating could appear on them after a period of time. Of course, we were in L.A. - smog city. Under a scope, you could move this coating around with a probe, into little sticky balls. Looked like a super thin coating of rubber cement under the scope.

Some may have used Pt. Also, I'm thinking that some had an non-PM, transparent, organic coating on them, but it's been over 30 years since I've seen any of these. Most that I saw were gold plated. Like everything, there were probably both cheapo and high dollar varieties, depending on the application.

ander,

Those look nothing like what I'm talking about. They were flat and polished.


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## ander (Jan 15, 2010)

I got the point- these are covers for drives. Disc inside were like orange-brown, so I'm not sure what to think about it.


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## DNIndustry (Jan 24, 2010)

I have a pretty good selection of old platters.have to dig em out.

GSP- 10) Jet Engine
a) Gold Brazed Stators
b) Gold Brazed Stator Segments
c) Gold or Gold/Palladium Brazed Twin Rotor Blades
d) Gold/Platinum Pitot Tubes
e) Gold Fuel Manifolds
f) Gold Fuel Plumbing
g) Silver and Silver/Palladium Stators
h) Silver Brazed Stator Segments
i) Miscellaneous Aircraft Parts

Are the pitot tubes solid Pt or plated? 
In just the blackbox or dash instruments as well?


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 25, 2010)

DNIndustry,

I have only seen one type of pitot tube that had Au/Pt in it. I used to get about 20 of these at a time from a scrapper and don't know what military plane they came from. They were shaped sort of like a fat, gun-like, spray nozzle used on a water hose - maybe 5" tall X 3" wide. The outside shell was copper, of which I dissolved the bottom in in nitric to get to the insides. An inside shaft contained a solid pure platinum ring about 3/8" dia. and 1/8" thick. I am thinking there was also a smaller solid gold ring. There was a tube about 3/8" x 3" made up of some sort of material like fiberglass, intertwined with gold. The weight of this tube was about 40% gold. The insulated electrical wires on the inside were usually solid platinum and/or gold, although a few were copper. Very high value units, although I don't remember exactly how much. It's been 25 years since I've seen these, so my memory may not be perfect.

Chris


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## big red 211 (Feb 14, 2010)

What type of headlights are you talking about on cars? The sealed beam, halogen, HID?


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 14, 2010)

big red 211,



> What type of headlights are you talking about on cars? The sealed beam, halogen, HID?



Sorry, but I don't know. I saw a discussion about them on another forum. I'm sure that someone here could answer your question.


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## Ocean (Dec 31, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> big red 211,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I would like to know this as well.


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## jimdoc (Dec 31, 2010)

I am pretty sure it is not on all cars,probably just some high end cars.


Jim


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## Oz (Jan 1, 2011)

Year old thread resurrected.

I have heard (I do not know) that some headlamp reflectors had a flash plate of Rh due to its reflectivity and lack of corrosion. But even at $10,000.00 rhodium it was not cost effective to chase after.


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## aurotech (Feb 28, 2011)

what areas of p.c has PM


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## parrothead (Feb 28, 2011)

aurotech said:


> what areas of p.c has PM



Most of the stuff listed above

4) Electronic
a) Personal Computers
b) Circuit Boards
c) Fingers
d) Circuit Board Trim
e) Router Dust
f) Backplanes
g) Mainframes
h) Gold Lids
i) Old Gold IC’s
j) CPU IC’s
k) Hybrid Packages
l) Hybrid Circuits
m) Plastic DIP’s
n) Ceramic DIP’s
o) Lead Frames and Trim
p) TO5’s and TO18’s
q) TO3’s
r) TO92’s and LED’s
s) Relays
t) Thick Film Circuits
u) Thin Film Circuits
v) Pins
w) Connectors
x) Platinum Group Scrap
y) Silver Plated Wire
z) Silver Capacitors
aa) Palladium Chip Capacitors
bb) Gold Backed Silicon Wafers and Chips
cc) Switches, Etc.
dd) Tantalum Capacitors
ee) Silver DMSO Solutions
ff) Solder Preforms – usually Au/Sn or Au/Si


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## shaftsinkerawc (Feb 28, 2011)

What is this? Au/Si


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## qst42know (Mar 3, 2011)

Au=gold,Si=silicon. Brazing alloy.


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## shaftsinkerawc (Mar 3, 2011)

Thanks, I was not aware of the Au/Si solder. Thought he meant silver. Found this with google.
"gold plating of silica nanoparticles for use in composite solders"


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## qst42know (Mar 3, 2011)

It melts at 685 F so technically it is a solder not a braze.

http://books.google.com/books?id=cQ6khQScBF4C&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=gold+silicon+solder&source=bl&ots=TCpc3ShPCj&sig=Jqb7YWyEkABGCmk63wkvTwKqHxQ&hl=en&ei=zxNwTe3kNMO1tgfSh7DrDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=gold%20silicon%20solder&f=false


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## MMFJ (Jul 15, 2011)

THANKS for this list! Makes it much simpler to show my crew what items to watch for.

I've put it into a .doc form (single page, "suitable for framing"  - maybe it will help others... 
View attachment List of Items That Contain Precious Metals.doc


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