# gold plated jewelry or e-waste



## jimmyreece (Feb 26, 2011)

which yeilds a higher return of gold on average, a mix combination of gold plated jewelry or a mix combination of e-waste


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## glondor (Feb 26, 2011)

I would take a wild guess that pound for pound plated jewelry would come out ahead unless your scrap was really clean and well concentrated. (which does take a LOT of hand work) I think it would (plated) also be easier to recover by far using a sulphuric stripping cell. I may be wrong as i have little experience at this, but the optics of the situation suggest plated is the winner to me.


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## jimmyreece (Feb 26, 2011)

that would makes sense to a certain degree.GP jewelry has more surface are your deplating and we know for the most part what karat your working with.but then again pound for pound jewelry weighs more withthe thicker base metals. do we really know what karat is used on average with fingers,cpus,connectors and circut boards?


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## dtectr (Feb 26, 2011)

jimmyreece said:


> that would makes sense to a certain degree.GP jewelry has more surface are your deplating and we know for the most part what karat your working with.but then again pound for pound jewelry weighs more withthe thicker base metals. do we really know what karat is used on average with fingers,cpus,connectors and circut boards?


near 24k or there wouldn't be a point in using it - corrosion resistance, which fades as you begin to alloy it.


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## jimmyreece (Feb 26, 2011)

thanks dtectr. that makes alot of sense too. just curious,how much weight in gold did you recover in those photos


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## ΩPhoenix (May 15, 2012)

I recovered over 3 ounces from roughly 35 lbs. of gold filled watchbands and eyeglasses back in 
the mid 80's. This was old stuff and some antique eyeframes which had a heavier plate. 

I am really interested what values are in the pentium pro chips and others with all the
surface gold showing.


Thanks
Steve Looser
ΩPhoenix Consulting


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## Geo (May 15, 2012)

actually, the smaller the gold plated pieces, the more plated area you will have. theres more gold in a pound of gold plated pins than there would be in a pound of gold plated chain. gold filled is a totally different thing altogether. the larger the piece, the more base metal you will have to deal with. the smaller the piece, the more gold you will have.


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## MMFJ (May 15, 2012)

jimmyreece said:


> which yeilds a higher return of gold on average, a mix combination of gold plated jewelry or a mix combination of e-waste


I think the question needs a lot of refinement itself - after all, "e-waste" includes all the radios, TVs, speakers and multitude of other plastic, aluminum and even copper, etc (i.e., Electronic Waste....), though it seems like the answers going around presume only the nice, shiny stuff (i.e., after cleaning it down to the 'ready to start refining' parts.

The question will quickly be grabbed by the newbies and taken totally out of proportion - so I caution both those wanting to answer/contribute as well as the original question to be clarified (not trying to nit-pick here, but there are way too many folks scouting this forum for the "easy way out tips", which we know not to be there, other than a bit of work, etc.) I can just see glondor's answer going out all over the internet


> "pound for pound plated jewelry would come out ahead"


 - without benefit of any clarification.

When you look at E-WASTE compared to Gold Plated Jewelry, there is no comparison, pound for pound. If there is anywhere close to 'comparable', then I'm paying way too little for my e-waste! :!:


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## Harold_V (May 16, 2012)

ΩPhoenix said:


> I recovered over 3 ounces from roughly 35 lbs. of gold filled watchbands and eyeglasses back in
> the mid 80's. This was old stuff and some antique eyeframes which had a heavier plate.


Steve,
The material you mentioned is not plated, or very little would be, if any. It is, for the most part, gold filled, which is not even remotely related to gold plated materials and should not be confused with such. 

The discussion revolves around the best yield from escrap or plated jewelry. In my humble opinion, plated jewelry is a very poor source for gold, unlike gold filled objects. The plating tends to be nothing more than a flash, and it's the plating that undergoes all the wear when such jewelry is worn. E scrap tends to lose very little gold, aside from the small amount that may be abraded from fingers. I fully expect that it would be a better source for gold, pound for pound, when compared to plated jewelry. 

I stand to be corrected by anyone with solid data. 

Harold


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