# 1969



## Thomacus (Jan 28, 2022)

came across about 30 boards one is from the 1969 #501


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## nickvc (Jan 28, 2022)

The chips are probably more way more as collector items than any gold value.


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## MicheleM (Jan 28, 2022)

What A piece or history!


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## orvi (Jan 28, 2022)

If you have time and patience, try to research and sell those beautiful chips as collector items. Maybe not in the best condition, still worth more than gold value - my opinion.
Very nice find. Just be careful what you toss away, old electronics has so much hidden values in nearly every part of the circuit. Even some resistors could hold PM. Not just fingers and chips 
PtPd capacitors, many times in plastic casings - old type MLCCs could give you insane values of PtPd, sometimes as high as 7% of weight. Mostly around 1%, but still.

Study and enjoy the good stuff


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## Geo (Jan 28, 2022)

The intel 8086's are pretty common. I'll see if I can id some of the others.


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## Geo (Jan 28, 2022)

Intel 8086 - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## Geo (Jan 28, 2022)

Try this resource. It takes a little while to learn how to navigate the page but there is a lot of info there.


https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/index.html


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## Thomacus (Jan 29, 2022)

I would like to see them go to a collector then 
if you all know of one or a link 
Thank you


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## Thomacus (Feb 15, 2022)

I would like to find some one who is a collector 
I have more what I know about this is it from 1959 
RCA MM 600


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## Rreyes097 (Feb 16, 2022)

I'm not a collector but that stuff is nice. How much are you selling for?


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## Alondro (Feb 16, 2022)

Thomacus said:


> came across about 30 boards one is from the 1969 #501


Hmm, I see some palladium-silver capacitors. Those dark reddist-brown ones on the 8036 picture are a very old type with layers of parallel film squeezed at the bulgy ends with metal clips. The little metal films, which are usually palladium-silver, are actually separated by sheets of mica! The metal clips of some I've opened appear to be gold-plated. I'm going to do a test of them today, in fact. 

I have some even older capacitors to this, which were just a couple sheets of mica plated in the centers with silver and palladium, then squished between two silver-plated copper leads, and the whole sandwhich was wrapped in a silver-plated brass clip, then covered with clear plastic. Very simple!


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## Alondro (Feb 16, 2022)

Thomacus said:


> I would like to find some one who is a collector
> I have more what I know about this is it from 1959
> RCA MM 600


That looks like a radio and/or transmitter. I see the big old-type tuner bar in one pic.

And I see RELAY SWITCHES on some of those boards! Those can be pretty awesome: tiny solid silver contact buttons inside, sometimes even better!


orvi said:


> If you have time and patience, try to research and sell those beautiful chips as collector items. Maybe not in the best condition, still worth more than gold value - my opinion.
> Very nice find. Just be careful what you toss away, old electronics has so much hidden values in nearly every part of the circuit. Even some resistors could hold PM. Not just fingers and chips
> PtPd capacitors, many times in plastic casings - old type MLCCs could give you insane values of PtPd, sometimes as high as 7% of weight. Mostly around 1%, but still.
> 
> Study and enjoy the good stuff


I have some old components with all manner of mysterious lengths of exceedingly thin wire wrapped around a ceramic core. But I suspect many times it's tungsten, and I don't want to risk getting that in my PM solutions, as I've heard it's a pain in the neck to get rid of from the PMs.

I've also seen those old resistors with end caps that are clearly plated with either silver or palladium.

And now I'm up to about 5 pounds of the long IC chips with the pointy leads. They can have EVERYTHING in them. I'm doing a test batch after burning with a very hot fire to turn the plastic to fine white ash (got a great setup that burns them so clean there's not even any smoke!) and frees all the metal and core silicon chips. I have to use sulfuric acid to extract them. There are simply too many metals present to use any other acid, since HCl would ruin the plentiful silver and nitric would cause large amounts of insoluble goo if aluminum, tin, bismuth, or a couple other metals are present in significant quantities. Sulfuric will eat up almost everything except gold, platinum, and rhodium. So I can get one solution with the base metals plus silver and palladium, then the solids will have the other PMs which I can hit with hot aqua regia... leaving rhodium.. that's the tricky one I'm still trying to figure out. It's SO valuable now! $600 per GRAM! A piece of it the size of a lentil is the equivalent of 4 days work at $15/hr! 

I could use some help figuring out the most likely components which will have rhodium... I have 500 pounds of boards and components from the 60's to the early 2000's. 

The coolest is a bunch of thick, heavy boards from a decommissioned nuclear launch control made in 1976. The amount of gold-plated EVERYTHING in those parts was jaw-dropping. Solid platinum posts in heavy-gold-plated IC transistors, nearly 2 pounds of heavy gold-plated pins. Hundreds of large foil capacitors which I believe are the tantalum-silver foil type. And then the resistors all have little wrappings of that mysterious wire. 

I seriously need to find someplace local with a mass spec or XRF gun. Trying to test all these components chemically would take months.


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## orvi (Feb 16, 2022)

Alondro said:


> That looks like a radio and/or transmitter. I see the big old-type tuner bar in one pic.
> 
> And I see RELAY SWITCHES on some of those boards! Those can be pretty awesome: tiny solid silver contact buttons inside, sometimes even better!
> 
> ...


Aside of being amazed with jaw drop, i would be also bit concerned about this stuff. I do not intend to discourage you from the extraordinary venture you have... But this stuff is often manufactured to the purpose of certain application. And there are no regulations or anything applied - this means insane yields, but possibly presence of lethal substances. Many many old ceramic IC chips contain beryllium. Cadmium solder is also one of the "pleasant" things in many old devices. Burning chips with beryllium and possible cadmium present... I just don´t want to imagine it  Scary about beryllium is that even XRF does not tell you it´s there, so much light element.

Only thing that I encountered, with superthin wire wrapped around ceramic which contained values, were Pt temperature probes/resistors. There is also possibility that it is just ordinary wire resistor with NiCr wire. 

Sorting, small sample chemical testing. If you don´t have access to XRF... Only option I think. Or organize the different stuff into some bags/organizers and try to make a deal with someone who has XRF - analyze it in one day for some price.

Make a testing schedule for mysterious metal components. Pick metals of interest (mine Au,Ag,Pt,Pd,Rh,Ir,Ta), and develop testing strategy. Gold is obvious most of the times. Dilute nitric acid test could distinguish between silver and PGMs. Concentrated warm nitric will dissolve palladium. Pt will go into AR with some heating. Rh rarely pass into the solution with AR. Observe the colour of the solution.
I would consider finding some standards for your metals of interest - eg pure metals or compounds of them. Then test every one with your own stannous chloride solution in various concentrations. Take pictures and notes. This could save you TON of the time thinking about what is what and what is worth your effort.

Good luck with scavenging values


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## Thomacus (Feb 17, 2022)

Rreyes097 said:


> I'm not a collector but that stuff is nice. How much are you selling for?


I don't even know what a fair price would be
I have found some similar comportment here Antique Radios, 329 101 Antique Radios listed
but if I come up with a number I will for sure let you know and Thank you for taking the time and looking


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## Alondro (Feb 17, 2022)

orvi said:


> Aside of being amazed with jaw drop, i would be also bit concerned about this stuff. I do not intend to discourage you from the extraordinary venture you have... But this stuff is often manufactured to the purpose of certain application. And there are no regulations or anything applied - this means insane yields, but possibly presence of lethal substances. Many many old ceramic IC chips contain beryllium. Cadmium solder is also one of the "pleasant" things in many old devices. Burning chips with beryllium and possible cadmium present... I just don´t want to imagine it  Scary about beryllium is that even XRF does not tell you it´s there, so much light element.
> 
> Only thing that I encountered, with superthin wire wrapped around ceramic which contained values, were Pt temperature probes/resistors. There is also possibility that it is just ordinary wire resistor with NiCr wire.
> 
> ...


I'm only doing very tiny tests at the moment in small glass test tubes, figuring out what works most efficiently. 

I was thinking about NiCr wire, but them wire in the components with little gold endcaps was wrapped in a gel-like polymer which doesn't handle heat well, so that makes me doubt it's a resistor. Maybe some sort of internal voltage regulator? It's constructed unlike any other component I've seen.


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## butcher (Feb 17, 2022)

I see what looks to be a variac variable transformer and a couple of variable resistors, what looks to be backs of a switch, some type of possible satellite transmission or reception type circuit components.
several electronic components that would be useful around the lab, like for setting up an electrolytic cell or most any other project.


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## Thomacus (Feb 18, 2022)

orvi said:


> If you have time and patience, try to research and sell those beautiful chips as collector items. Maybe not in the best condition, still worth more than gold value - my opinion.
> Very nice find. Just be careful what you toss away, old electronics has so much hidden values in nearly every part of the circuit. Even some resistors could hold PM. Not just fingers and chips
> PtPd capacitors, many times in plastic casings - old type MLCCs could give you insane values of PtPd, sometimes as high as 7% of weight. Mostly around 1%, but still.
> 
> Study and enjoy the good stuff


wow 1 to 7 % Thank you I am now going back and separating all the parts that I removed now I can try and put a price on some of this


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## Alondro (Feb 22, 2022)

Thomacus said:


> wow 1 to 7 % Thank you I am now going back and separating all the parts that I removed now I can try and put a price on some of this


I'm going to be doing a test on those brown bulgy capacitors, as I have some. I broke one open and it has what appear to be two fairly large gold or gold-plated brass electrode clamps holding down a sandwich of mica sheets layered with silvery metal, probably Ag/Pd.


Thomacus said:


> wow 1 to 7 % Thank you I am now going back and separating all the parts that I removed now I can try and put a price on some of this


Test completed: all the metal dissolved in 50/50 nitric/dH2O. No silver drop at all. No trace of palladium. 

Seems those brown capacitors are just brass clips with aluminum-coated mica sheets. The brass was simply so highly polished it looked like gold. Posts are copper-nickel, it looks like.


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## Ohiogoldfever (Feb 27, 2022)

The rectangular boxes are Mercury relays, switches. Nothing worth collecting, other than Mercury. 

I have processed lots of this kind of material. My favorite by far. Built to last a life time back when PMs were fairly cheap.


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## Alondro (Feb 27, 2022)

Ohiogoldfever said:


> The rectangular boxes are Mercury relays, switches. Nothing worth collecting, other than Mercury.
> 
> I have processed lots of this kind of material. My favorite by far. Built to last a life time back when PMs were fairly cheap.


Mmmm, mercury... *chug chug chug* Don't worry, I'm from NJ! We've mutated to need toxic waste in order to survive! XD


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## kurtak (Feb 28, 2022)

Thomacus said:


> wow 1 to 7 % Thank you I am now going back and separating all the parts that I removed now I can try and put a price on some of this


The burgundy colors kidney shaped capacitors pictured in the bowl are silver/mica capacitors

like these 









any PM in any of these capacitors?


Hello I am new to the forum and have been lurking a while. I tried extensive searching and on Google as well but it's hard to find a list of all components, even just for tantalum. I did see a good thread from a tantalum refiner on here though so I have started sorting some things. Anyway in...




goldrefiningforum.com





Kurt


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## kurtak (Feb 28, 2022)

Here is an old thread about the silver/mica Caps

they will yield about (plus/minus) 1 ozt silver per pound









Silver Mica Capacitors


Here's a fairly common component that contains silver in the plates of the rectangular section as shown on the right side of the photo below: These are known as silver mica capacitors and are typically found in older TV and radio equipment and in surplus shops by the thousand. They are easy...




goldrefiningforum.com





Kurt


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