# Old plated gold chips. Evaluation?



## a_bab (Mar 17, 2011)

I can get 5 of these: http://www.cpu-museum.com/Bilder/Mitsubishi-MA81xx_1.jpg

Does anyone knows hoq much gold in these? I'd dare to say some 30 mg/chip?


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## Anonymous (Mar 17, 2011)

Worth more to a collector than the gold is worth.


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## a_bab (Mar 17, 2011)

'been thinking about this. They look rather old.


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## macfixer01 (Mar 19, 2011)

My hunch is they probably have more gold than 30mg apiece but I have no real numbers. They appear to be made by Mitsubishi from the logos. They also appear to be made in the early 1980's from the date codes, although I'm a little confused as to how they're numbered. Normally the date code would be 2 numbers for the year and 2 numbers for the week of manufacture, but the second numbers are higher than 52 on some of them? Don't forget there is gold in those sockets also, and possible even in some of those black-cased transistors as well. As often is the case though you may still do better just selling the board on Ebay.

macfixer01


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## element47 (Apr 3, 2011)

I listed and sold these 18 qty chips on ebay ending March 28th 2011. These are ceramic chips, Motorola XC8820. They are 1-3/4" on a side, they're the big ones. Why 18? Because 18 is a little over a pound. This is stuff that I've had laying around for 10+ years, left over from a computer business I had. 

I'm new to the forum and I'm having a pretty good time just poking around and learning stuff. I have a small amount of gold scrap and quite a bit more silver, generally sterling. The processes of refining are quite interesting to me, but I'm really not in the great position to deal with acids and fumes. I remain pretty intimidated by those aspects. I am soooo tempted to get involved with silver refining, but aqua regia is on my "no way" list. 

Therefore, these gold chips had to go. I don't think I did bad nor did I do great. As far as I'm concerned, you take on some nontrivial risks to process this stuff. And the more primitive and amateurish your situation ,the greater the chance you have of doing some serious damage to yourself. For the veterans here, it's probaby no big deal. Maybe it's like a person who has never used a power saw before and only sees the thing chopping off his arm. 






Anyway, somebody give me an idea of the recovery value of these dudes...then I can feel bad! No, just kidding. He who deals with the acids & fumes deserves his profit.


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## Harold_V (Apr 3, 2011)

element47 said:


> I am soooo tempted to get involved with silver refining, but aqua regia is on my "no way" list.


One doesn't use AR for silver refining. It's strictly a nitric acid proposition. However, you'll come to understand that you can't really process silver without encountering not only gold, but the platinum group of metals, too. 

Harold


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## Anonymous (Apr 3, 2011)

element47 said:


> I listed and sold these 18 qty chips on ebay ending March 28th 2011


You are comparing apples to oranges.
The chips you sold are worth exponentially more than the chips a_bab has.Not only from a collectable standpoint,but from a gold standpoint.
However judginf from the price they sold to a collector.$6.70 each is a decent price to a collector,and too close to the gold content for a refiner to make a profit.
The mitsubishi chips are not nearly as collectable,and they have a miniscule amount of gold compared to the motorolla's.
I'd pay $15 for the chips with the board plus shipping.


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## element47 (Apr 3, 2011)

> I am soooo tempted to get involved with silver refining, but aqua regia is on my "no way" list.



I see that the way I worded this sentence, it sounded like I was getting AR---which I fully understand is gold (and not silver) related---mixed up with silver refining. I'm clear about the distinction, but I appreciate the clarification nonetheless. What I meant to convey was that if AR is on my "no way" list then I am not in the gold refining business, period, and thus I should just sell Au-bearing scrap into the frenzy that is clearly going on. 

What I meant to say was that since I have many many kilos of silver scrap, the urge to "process" is there; whereas since I only have a smidgeon (less than 10 lbs of chips) of gold-bearing ewaste, I'm less motivated to delve into the gold side of things. 

In point of fact, one could argue that processing silver is potentially more dangerous than gold, because of the NO2 generation in the nitric acid > silver/copper reaction. As I understand things, there is no great difference in handling dangers between nitric and AR. But those NO2 fumes scare the crap out of me, and I'm not shy admitting it.


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## Oz (Apr 3, 2011)

I may be mistaken, but I think what Harold was pointing out is that if you are running a silver cell you will be getting gold and platinum group metals as residues (slimes). So you are left with byproducts that are far more valuable that your silver (on a gram-gram basis). These mixed residues will require the use of AR to process and refine.


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## element47 (Apr 3, 2011)

Yes, I quite agree (with your take on Harold's take) 

But there's a difference in perspective: Harold, as I understand from his posts, worked his operation as an ongoing business with a real location, where he knew that next week and next month and next year he would be getting more and more raw material to process/refine and thus could accumulate residues over longish periods of time in order to maximize yields of stuff he wasn't particularly trying for in the first place. He could also (in the era he worked) buy 55 gal drums of nitric acid as a matter of a simple commercial purchase. I am in neither of those positions. I am an acquirer, an accumulator of silver (and/or gold) without any particular desire to be a refiner, UNLESS refining can be done on a cost-neutral and hazard-neutral basis. My work, heh, I'll throw that in for free. My vision, my lungs, those are irreplaceable. 

Right now, today, I am 98% silver and 2% gold. I can send marked sterling to any of several refiners and get back about 80% of spot in gross weight back in cash. I'm in no particular hurry to do so, as I prefer silver to dollars. Though I *do* like to sell off a kilo or two two now and then. No muss, no fuss, no chemical costs nor hazards, no protective gear, etc; etc; No skill or acumen, either, other than the skill of not overpaying for the raw materials. My costs consist of a scale which I already own and packing tape to seal the carton in which I send the goods away. I am perfectly OK with the idea that he who runs and fuels a genuine OSHA-compliant furnace (that I don't have) and an assaying operation (that I don't have) needs to make money from same. The thing that bugs me about this is that as the price of silver rises, the "refiner's cut" has risen to what I now consider a galling level. When silver was $11 and I lost $2.20/tr oz to the refiner, well, that was fairly OK. I had to buy and land a 46 gram sterling fork = 36.8 grams net .999 Ag (using the 80% factor) = 1.18 tr oz Ag * $11 for less than $13. Simple. I can either buy or not buy what I find. When silver was $15, 46 gms * .8 = 38.6 net grams = 1.18 tr oz Ag * $15 = I could pay no more than $17.70. 

With silver now above $35, I am paying $7 per troy ounce for refining. It's the same old 20% but it's quite a bit more money. Sure, the refiners' costs have risen, but they have not tripled. So, this is my motivation behind investigating refining. You can sometimes buy silver for a buck or two under spot, but you're not going to buy silver for $7 under spot from anyone with functioning neurons. 

Hence, as I see it, the feasibility of obtaining silver this way (by buying scrap sterling) has effectively ended. When I can buy known-mint .999 ingots for $1.50 over spot (a 4% premium) as hard as it is to buy $38 silver for one who has been buying it since $6, it seems dumb to do the scrounging to find cheap sterling which has a "penalty" of greater than 10%. If I could refine silver for under $3 a tr oz, then I would consider that route and that is why I am here. The few grams of Pt or Au I might get in the form of vile residual liquids have value, sure. But that exercise for me, a backyard guy, seems not particularly worth it. For a professional refiner, whole different story.


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## shyknee (Apr 3, 2011)

> If I could refine silver for under $3 a tr oz, then I would consider that route and that is why I am here.


  it is possible 8)


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