# Scrap motherboard prices , U.K.



## kuma (Oct 18, 2011)

Hello all , how are things ?
I have just this minute had a phone call from my local scrappy offering me £1.70 per kg for un-picked motherboards (apart from just gold fingers trimmed from the edge) , and he said (understandably) that they would be offering me even less for daughter boards.
I underdstand that they have shipping cost's , but does this seem just a little low to anybody else ?
Many thanks and kind regards ,
Chris


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## Acid_Bath76 (Oct 18, 2011)

I need to check the exchange rate, but 4.10-4.50 USD/lb seems to be around the market value over here for Motherboards. .636USD=1GBP. 1Kg=2.2lbs

2.2lbs x 4.10 = $9.02 = 5.74GBP. 

If the above is all correct, it seems this guy is trying to bend you over. Have you looked around for the best prices? Chances are you just ran across an unscrupulous dealer. I can't imagine such a large difference in price between us. Then again, I haven't been doing this all that long. I just reread your post, and you mentioned trimming fingers off your motherboard. Can you post a pic of these?


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## nickvc (Oct 19, 2011)

Chris there are some bigger players around in the UK who I'm sure would pay more than that but you would have to have volumes to get them to collect I think. If you only have a small amount keep saving until you have a reasonable volume and then borrow a van or large estate car and take a trip to the mainland and deliver your boards in person. Try googling e scrap buyers and see what turns up, I'm sure some of the bigger boys will be on there and then you can make a few phone calls and get a decent price, you never know perhaps you can buy the boards off the scrappy who made the offer to you and make a profit 8)


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## kuma (Oct 19, 2011)

Morining guy's , how are tricks today ?
Hope all is well!  



Acid_Bath76 said:


> I need to check the exchange rate, but 4.10-4.50 USD/lb seems to be around the market value over here for Motherboards. .636USD=1GBP. 1Kg=2.2lbs
> 
> 2.2lbs x 4.10 = $9.02 = 5.74GBP.



That's pretty much what I figured , I checked out Boardsort's page then did the same math , I'm sure they're trying to play me on this one. 
Turns out that when they were giving me 90 pence on the kilo for dirty copper (cables and such) others in the u.k. were getting way more. He actualy asked me enthusiasticly yesterday if I could get anymore cable , I'm thinking that they have people in every day with the stuff , so why be so keen for me to bring in more , especialy if it's just a few kg's here and there ? I reckon it's because they're making more than just the odd buck off of me , lol's.
Conversely , I took down to them , picked to the point of utter destruction, 8.5 kg of motherboards and 5.5kg of mixed daughter boards yesterday , and they still gave me £18.60.
They paid me £1.70 per kg motherboards and £1.00 per kg daughterboards.
Either way , those boards were destined for the recycling skip at the dump so quids in on my cr*p , lol's :lol: 
I still have around 100 or so of the un picked motherboards to pull , I'll go through these too before they get their hands on them for £1.70 a kg.
I'll sort out a picture of one of these with the fingers in a mo , :-0)
There is what could be construed as a warning in big letters on their door. Somebody has used a can of spray to change the business name from 'Hunt Brothers' to , well , you can figure that one out! :lol:
Theres only one other scrappy over here (well two , but one is government run and only takes steel which they don't pay for , nowhere else to take it), so I'll get in touch with them to see what the score is. 



nickvc said:


> If you only have a small amount keep saving until you have a reasonable volume and then borrow a van or large estate car and take a trip to the mainland and deliver your boards in person.



I remember you mentioning that to me a while ago , it's deffinatly an idea that I've toyed with and it would be the perfect excuse to get over there and see my brother!
I already have a van so no worries there! 8) 



nickvc said:


> you never know perhaps you can buy the boards off the scrappy who made the offer to you and make a profit 8)



Now that's the kind of thinking that puts a smile on my face! 8) :lol: 
My friend and neighbour owns a building firm and has a pretty big lockup thats fairly empty most of the time , for a tenner a month or whatever I'm sure he'll let me take a corner to pile this stuff up , 8) 
Well thanks for the response guys , I'll pull one of those motherboards now and get a picture up :-0)
All the best for now and kind regards ,
Chris


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## kuma (Oct 19, 2011)

Hi guy's , I'm sorry but I can't upload any pictures , every time I try I'm just redirected to the old ''cannot display the webpage'' chestnut , lol
I'll keep trying!
All the best for now and kind regards ,
Chris


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## kuma (Oct 19, 2011)

Hi guy's , just had a thought , I'll use image shack!
(I'm not the quickest cookie on the tray! :lol: )

One of the motherboards with fingers ; http://tinyurl.com/3turos2
Close up of fingers ; http://tinyurl.com/3nzkl6k
Hope that works!! :mrgreen: 
All the best and kind regards ,
Chris

(Edit to gloat , I pulled it off! :lol: )


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## tlcarrig (Oct 19, 2011)

That's a nice board kuma. I got two just like it the other day. One of them had a daughter board in the connectors down the right side. Lots of nice fingers on it just like the ones at the bottom of your board. I wish the other MB had a daughter board on it too.


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## kuma (Oct 20, 2011)

tlcarrig said:


> That's a nice board kuma. I got two just like it the other day. One of them had a daughter board in the connectors down the right side. Lots of nice fingers on it just like the ones at the bottom of your board. I wish the other MB had a daughter board on it too.



Hi , how are tricks ?
Hope your well!
By my math (which is questional at the best of times , lol) I have over 100lbs of these to go through , should keep me busy and out of trouble for some time!
Only about half of these had daughter boards too , long narrow white ones with the *interlocked* type fingers , havn't got a picture , sorry!
The fingers on the motherboards will make up for that nicely though , ;-)
All the best and kind regards ,
Chris


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## patnor1011 (Oct 22, 2011)

If you buy these boards and price is set on weight, make sure they will be without that metal plate underneath as that may weight the same as motherboard is.


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## kuma (Oct 22, 2011)

patnor1011 said:


> make sure they will be without that metal plate underneath as that may weight the same as motherboard is.



Hi , how are tricks?
I hope all is well! 
For sure , I removed all of the metel plate and the plastic mounts for the CPU heatsink and fan.
The small boards inside the unit's (for headphone / microphone ect.) have really nice fully plated fingers on them , and they all had a saftey cut off switch inside with some nice looking plated contacts.
After removing all of the gold fingers from the motherboards , I sold them as I figured that (apart from the partialy plated pins , the odd flatpack and monolithics ect.) I had already removed what I think will be sufficient toward my first 'wee nugget , :mrgreen: 
Out of that load I've pulled over 2k.g.'s of ram , one and a half takeaway boxes full of cpu's , a whole load of lovely looking contacts from the cut off switches , some nice shiney pins , and probably around half a pound or more of close cut fingers (I automaticaly started to mix these in with my other fingers so I can't get an accurate weight on all of these , but just the fingers trimmed from the motherboards alone weigh in at 160 gram's , I'll separate them all into different types for processing).
I reckon all in all I have made about £140 so far out of this from the scrappy , this has cleared up much needed space , and seeing as I didn't invisage making a penny out of this it was a rather nice supprise! :mrgreen: 
I'll have a go at getting some pictures up afterwards!
All the best and kind regards , 
Chris


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## joem (Oct 22, 2011)

Great job Kuma.
It's how I started and I am running out of room in my garage every week now.


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## rewalston (Oct 22, 2011)

At least you have a garage  I have one of those portable sheds. Aluminum poles with rubberized canvas on all sides. REALLY cold in that shed let me tell ya. 

Rusty


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## kuma (Oct 24, 2011)

Hi guy's , how are tricks ?
I hope all is well!  
Sorry , I've been unable to get online properly for the last couple of days , my daughter sat on my usb internet dongle when it was plugged into my laptop and 'snapped' a few contacts (6!) inside. I've just managed to get it working properly with a piece of a plastic Lego ariel , some insulation tape , a few hairs of copper wire , a sharpened precision screwdriver , and microscope , and more patience than I ever thought I could muster with somthing so intricatly small!  
I'm about ready to reclaim the space behind my bar/deck booth now , all the cases are empty and ready for Mr. Scrappy!
Were supposed to be moving home soon , at the minute there's five of us in a 2 bedroom maisonette , and even though theres a lovely public park and a beach a stones throw away , we have no private garden for me to even crack on with my fingers in AP.
I have friends and family with gardens , but I can't wait to get our own place with a garden , I've already designed my garden shed lab in my mind , right down to security arrangements , I.P. camera , motion sensor with alarm ect. 
Must start that 'saving' thing at some point! :mrgreen: 
Heres a couple of links to some pictures of both the fingers from just off of the motherboards alone , and also all of the contacts from the cut-off switches ;

http://tinyurl.com/5snzgto


http://tinyurl.com/6dwuvs3

Many thanks for the replies all!
All the best and kind regards, 
Chris


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