# need some advice on amphenol pins



## mls26cwru (Jun 28, 2012)

the other day a ran across a number of amphenol plugs and pins. After sorting through what i found, I have two piles of pins roughly 3 lbs per pile. One pile is totally covered in gold plating while the other is half coated in gold/half "silver" looking. Does anyone know what a good price for these pins are? or how much gold is in these kind of pins? I will probably just end up selling these if I can find a good offer, but I need to know what a 'good' price would be.

Thanks
Mike


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## Geo (Jun 28, 2012)

if i had to guess, id say at least a thousand dollars a pound. :shock: :lol: a picture would help.


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## mls26cwru (Jun 28, 2012)

Geo said:


> if i had to guess, id say at least a thousand dollars a pound. :shock: :lol: a picture would help.



well that would be pretty much awesome. I am at work at the moment, but this might help... i found a pic online that are pretty close to what i got. both types are shown (one fully platted, the other halfish platted) a couple dates on the containers indicate these were made in the early 90's.


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## Geo (Jun 28, 2012)

the gold to base metal ratio on those pins is pretty low. the plating is good in that its not like RCA (which is flash plated) but its just so much base metal involved. the silvered part is just chromed steel or stainless steel.the yield will be quite low on gold per pound. some one else may have better yield data than me, but i wouldnt expect more than .5 grams per pound.


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## mls26cwru (Jun 28, 2012)

Geo said:


> the gold to base metal ratio on those pins is pretty low. the plating is good in that its not like RCA (which is flash plated) but its just so much base metal involved. the silvered part is just chromed steel or stainless steel.the yield will be quite low on gold per pound. some one else may have better yield data than me, but i wouldnt expect more than .5 grams per pound.



now would that be .5grams per lb. for the fully plated ones, or the half plated ones? I got about 5 lbs of each, and will probably sell them if i can figure out a good price.

thanks,
M


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## Geo (Jun 28, 2012)

the pins with more stainless will have less gold per pound. the .5 per pound i mentioned was for a mix of the two types (with and with out the stainless steel)


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## NobleMetalWorks (Jun 28, 2012)

Geo is dead spot on, I have processed a lot of these that were mil-spec but even still I have never recovered more than 1g per lb, and most of the time it's around .5 grams.

Scott


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## Marcel (Jun 29, 2012)

Well they yield low due to "geometrical problem" which I can explain later, shortly said, teh large the diameter of an object the fewer the surface per volume it needs to be covered.
Since they are so large, another pre-process I could think of (If you have time and acces to machines):
Use a lathe a take the outer gold off. It doenst have to be 100% precice, but you reduce the BM by at least 90%. Then you can go trough AP or else.
For the inside of the you can use a drill.
It will take some hours to finish 3 lbs, but it would take days to do it with acids.
If you know someone with a CNC lathe and an automatic small part feeder, he may even program that for you and the will be processed very fast and automatically within 1-2 hours.


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## etack (Jun 29, 2012)

Sell them on ebay you will make a killing. Way more than the gold content. Ebayer love new pins.
my guess $40 -$60 a pound low end
Eric


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## mls26cwru (Jun 29, 2012)

thanks for the replies everyone! I am leaning towards putting them up on ebay, but i may save them and deplate them myself whenever i work up the courage/ambition


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## Dragonstar (Jul 1, 2012)

You can also sell them on start wars prop forums. They use those pins in Jedi communicators (in the "new" movies.... bleh). In fact I've been looking on ebay for some myself recently. You might be able to get more than typical ebay prices at the replica prop forum 
(http://www.the-rpf.com).


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