# Is it me?



## Russiandood (Feb 24, 2014)

Is it me or what? I cannot find a deal on any scrap. Everything is selling for 3 or 4 times the amount of gold in the scrap. Actually even more most of the time. Am I just looking in the wrong spot or wording my searches wrong? Had any one bought anything that was worth it for them? I honestly can't lol.


----------



## silversaddle1 (Feb 24, 2014)

Something is going on in the gold market. Something is going to happen. I have had 4 e-waste buyers contact me in the last week wanting to buy scrap. Hummmmm....
Wondering.


----------



## 5962rz (Feb 24, 2014)

Ebay is a great sellers market, not a good buyers market for materials to process. Deals are rare and few but if you invest enough time you do come across the odd good bargin. In my opinion rarely are the "good deals" worth the amount of time you sit in front of the computer searching for them.
Your time is better invested searching for new leads and contacts. Talk to every electronic shop, computer repair, cell phone store, home repair guy, battery store, anyone else who collects scrap..... HAVE A PILE OF BUSSINESS CARDS with your phone # and hand them out to every one - everywhere.
The people who have this stuff and need to get rid of it will be calling you to come pick it up. Set your prices from free to cheap and don't overpay.
Even collecting from the curb on garbage day is a very good FREE source. There are lots of avenues all more profitable then ebay. I search ebay on rainy days or in winter when it is too cold to work outside looking for that rare deal. DR.


----------



## Russiandood (Feb 24, 2014)

Thanks for the advice. Funny thing is I do work in a computer repair shop and that is how I get my scrap. Unfortunately we dont get a lot. But we do occasionally get big hauls. My boss was kind enough to let me take what I need. 

But besides that I wanted to see if people here actually bought things from eBay knowing people are selling at ridiculous prices. I was only looking in the area for fingers. I haven't checked to see other scrap parts like s/n bridge chips or IC's or so on. The less to non visible gold scrap.


----------



## gold4mike (Feb 24, 2014)

See if your boss will let you put up a sign that says "Free Computer Recycling". 

Two of the shops in my area that I buy from have done that and I give them $4.00 for each desktop computer. Some of their business customers have brought in several machines at a time.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Feb 24, 2014)

Russiandood said:


> But besides that I wanted to see if people here actually bought things from eBay knowing people are selling at ridiculous prices. I was only looking in the area for fingers. I haven't checked to see other scrap parts like s/n bridge chips or IC's or so on. The less to non visible gold scrap.


I find a few decent buys on FeePay, but I have to work for them. It's not so much that people are _selling_ at ridiculous prices (though there is some of that), but that people are _buying_ at ridiculous prices. 

If you search for obvious terms like gold fingers, you're one of many people looking at those same auctions, and you'll usually be outbid by someone. If you want to find the occasional bargain, you usually have to get creative. One popular technique is to search for misspelled words, so instead of searching for "gold fingers", you might try "glod fingers", or "gold fingres", or some other variation. But like I said, this is a well known and popular technique, so you still won't be alone in your searches, and it takes a lot of time trying all of the various combinations.

Another approach is to try to sift through the mountainous haystack looking for the needle. Be prepared to look through hundreds of auctions just to find one or two that are worth bidding on. Also, be prepared to be outbid on the one or two you find. You can spend several hours a day and not win a single auction.

But every once in a while, you can get lucky. Here's an auction I was fortunate enough to win yesterday: Whole Lot's of Old Vintage Silverware All Stamped Sterling. 5 pounds 11.2 ounces of sterling _should_ produce 76.87 troy ounces of fine silver. My final cost with shipping is right around $15.00 per ounce.

But I'm not home free yet. There is always the chance it's not all sterling as advertised. In that case, you have to try to negotiate a settlement with the seller, or you have to return the lot (usually at your own cost) for a refund.

There is no easy way to find good deals. You have to work hard for them.

Dave


----------



## bmgold2 (Feb 24, 2014)

I bought computer chips on Ebay when I first started thinking about refining gold just because it was easier and faster than getting the scrap myself. I paid more than they were worth. I still have most of them and just now dug them back out and, since the price of gold went up quite a bit since then, I may not have spent way too much. I'm not saying that was a good thing to do and I knew at the time it was probably more than it was worth. It is just a fact of life that many people, especially someone new to the hobby, will see the gold and pay too much for it thinking that it MUST be worth it since others are willing to pay so much for it.

The more I learn and study about this, the more I see that it is hard to get a good deal on scrap with so many other people after the same thing. Don't get caught up in the bidding wars. Set your maximum price and if someone is willing to pay more, move on to the next auction. It's not just Ebay. Regular (live) auctions are the same way. I've seen people bid more than things cost brand new for old junk. I always wanted an anvil and seen lots of them at auctions but never even bid on one there. The price always went WAY OVER what I was willing to pay. Then I found someone local and complained about not being able to get an anvil at a reasonable price. He sold me one that he had stored away in the back of a shed for $20.

You can get good deals at an auction (live or Ebay) but you have to pass up a lot of deals along the way. It all depends on what you are looking for and how many other people want the same thing. I never did think of looking up stuff spelled wrong. Good idea but now even more people know that trick. Good idea FrugalRefiner.


----------



## Anonymous (Feb 25, 2014)

It's certainly moving again. 

I had 4 people wanting server boards I had available, all at the same time this week. they all called to "see if I had any boards available" within a day.....

They all wanted to take the whole 8,800 lbs along with absolutely anything else I had available.


----------



## Captobvious (Feb 25, 2014)

spaceships said:


> It's certainly moving again.
> 
> I had 4 people wanting server boards I had available, all at the same time this week. they all called to "see if I had any boards available" within a day.....
> 
> They all wanted to take the whole 8,800 lbs along with absolutely anything else I had available.



Me thinks I'll be sitting on my hoard a little longer... if they're acting like that then you can be reasonably sure that they're trying to get boards at today's prices before the price jumps... my thinking at least.


----------



## silversaddle1 (Feb 25, 2014)

Yep, had another buyer from Texas who wants to buy everything I have. I have well over 20,000 pounds of PCB scrap of all grades. They want it all. Hummm, something's up. I have a target price on the grades and if they hit it, I will sell. Hell, I need a few new things anyway!!! :lol:


----------



## niteliteone (Feb 25, 2014)

Might it have something to do with the "price of gold" having gone up over $100 lately :?:


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Feb 26, 2014)

Update to my post above:

Another problem you can run into on FeePay is sellers who refuse to ship your item after you've won an auction. I received a message from the seller today that they had refunded my payment and were not going to ship the items. His/her excuse is that the items belonged to a hoarding Aunt who's son died last week, and she won't part with anything because she's traumatized. I believe it's because they didn't get the price they wanted. I gave the seller a chance to honor the contract, but he/she refuses. I had to phone FeePay to report the seller. Of course, FeePay can't force the seller to ship, so now I have to wait seven days from the date of the sale to leave negative feedback.

It's all part of doing business on FeePay, but it does seem to get more difficult every day.  

Dave


----------



## rebies (Mar 30, 2014)

I'm new to this, but wondering... If it is that much of a sellers market, and prices are that good, why are the members here refining on their own instead of selling to the chump buyers? I have to think if you can get $100 in gold or have someone pay you $150 on Ebay.... I know which way I would go.

Are there just that many new people in the space that don't know what they are doing? When I look at the prices board sort is paying, they seem comparable to a few of the auctions I have seen on Ebay.


----------



## necromancer (Mar 30, 2014)

i just opened up a ebay account to test the waters so to say.

i am going to be putting up some gold fingered ram to see if it attracts any piranha.

all of my buyers have dropped there prices ($1.25 for mixed motherboards) not a price i can sell at.
my motherboards i will hoard, all the small parts may go to ebay if the ram does well.

need to feed my children & recoup the money i payed out for some of the higrade electronics, plus if i can walk to the post office & not drive for a hour sounds interesting to me.


----------

