# uncut fingers on ebay



## ilovegrf (Nov 13, 2014)

thought someone may want to see this, so I am sharing.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/62-pieces-hi...151?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item462bb137bf


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 13, 2014)

ilovegrf said:


> thought someone may want to see this, so I am sharing.
> 
> http://www.ebay.ca/itm/62-pieces-hi...151?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item462bb137bf




Over priced


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## ilovegrf (Nov 13, 2014)

not as over priced as this 1lb of 999% 24k gold :roll: 
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Scrap-gold-G...509?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3398841e95

I think they are about 900% over the mark


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 13, 2014)

Two wrongs don't make a right.


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## ilovegrf (Nov 13, 2014)

goldsilverpro said:


> Two wrongs don't make a right.



or no matter how many times I click the happy face icon it will not insert itself in the post, so I just left it out.
really sorry there was no happy face guys/gals, I will regret it for the end of days that I didn't type it in

I was 100% right before I posted here though

taking 2 steps back and taking a second look will change your perspective every time.


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## necromancer (Nov 19, 2014)

it sold for USD $43.95 + 20 bucks shipping ($63.95 USD)

guessing their ""may"" be 3/4 a gram of gold there, but some of those photos did look like thick plating


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 19, 2014)

Just goes to prove the old saying "There is one born every second"


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## necromancer (Nov 19, 2014)

i get those same hard drive connector boards all the time, will dig some up in the next few weeks.
will run some and post the results. or maybe just put them on flebay  

$43.95 USD = $49.89 CAD. thats about $25.00 CAD per lb.

way better then triple M metals, they pay $0.05 per lb for clean motherboards & finger cards. I guess that's how they became a multi-billion dollar corporation.

triple M metals are the ones that own GEEP

as a guy with a van, i pay 25 times that amount


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## kazamir (Nov 19, 2014)

I don't think that the purchase price far is out of the way. If believe that the 62 fingers if trimmed from the boards would weigh 1/2 lb. There are 62 connector ends remaining. The fingers appear high carat compared with the ram in the photo. A 5-10 % appreciation in the gold price might make this a bargain.
If a forum member bought these, I would be interested in the results.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/62-pieces-high-grade-gold-fingers-gold-recovery-scrap-gold-900-grams-/301380745151?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item462bb137bf


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 19, 2014)

ilovegrf,

If you're going to be in the PM scrap business, you need to learn some things. Here are a few.

The gold plating on both types and on every piece of electronic scrap you've ever seen is a minimum of 99% pure. Only once in 49 years of messing with this stuff have I seen lesser purity gold plating used on electronic material. That was white Au/Pd, 60/40, plating on some reed switches. In most cultures, carat is a term used only for precious stone weights (there are some exceptions) - there are 5 carats in a gram. What you probably meant was Karat, the term used for jewelry alloys. However, electronic gold plating is always nearly pure (99%+). The term "karat" is never used for electronic gold plating. The term Karat (18k, 14K, etc.) is used for plated jewelry but only to designate the color. In actuality, 18K or 14K color gold plating on jewelry is usually about 22K in purity.

Nearly pure gold plating is used on electronics because it doesn't corrode and it's highly electrically conductive. When you start adding other metals to the gold, one or both of these characteristics are affected, sometimes severely, in a negative manner. Simply put, alloyed gold plating doesn't really work well on electronic materials.

The fingers are bigger but that means they are also heavier when trimmed. If the trimmed fingers are twice as big, there would be about twice as much board material. So, in terms of $/pound, they likely will end up being similar in value. I would be quite surprised if those larger trimmed fingers ran more than $100/pound. Assuming a half pound, that would be $50 and that is probably about the top. A fair price would be about $25-$30/1/2#. A more reliable method of comparison would be to determine the percentage of gold coverage after trimming (along with the weight). That would be the square inches of gold plating divided by the square inches of board material X 100.

We all tend to over-evaluate our own material. Human nature. If we think a pile of material might be worth somewhere between $100 and $200, we can easily talk ourselves into believing the higher number.


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## Harold_V (Nov 20, 2014)

goldsilverpro said:


> ilovegrf,
> 
> If you're going to be in the PM scrap business, you need to learn some things.


He was banned for spamming the board.

Harold


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## necromancer (Nov 20, 2014)

here is a photo of the array's i have been getting this summer. 
i have had a 26 foot cube van come in every week all summer filled with all types of old servers

the array is populated with hard drives that have the same type of connectors as the above link


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## kazamir (Nov 20, 2014)

Goldsilverpro
Thank you for taking the time to educate me on the difference between Karat and Carat and that electronic gold plating is nearly pure.
Regards
kazamir


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## necromancer (Nov 25, 2014)

so........

i was at my shop this Monday Nov 24 2014 & decided to dig up some of these finger cards
had to dump 1/2 a Gaylord of finger cards to find them, being small they sank to the bottom

found 2 types, item A (same as in ebay link) and item B (see photos)

item A has very thick plating on the fingers !
rubbed my thumb nail over item A and it filed my nail down a little
rubbed my thumb nail over item B and it slides over with no sound, no filing of my nail.







next is to recover the gold off the fingers, i dug up 135 of item A & 5 of item B

i will process 124 of item A, that's twice the amount as in the auction.

after processing i will post results. going to run them using the acid/peroxide method.


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 25, 2014)

At 30 micro" thick, which is about as thick as you'll ever see gold on fingers, you'll never be able to feel the gold edge. What you're feeling is the nickel plating and the much thicker copper (from 45 to 90 times thicker than the gold).

No offense, but I think your test is meaningless. You'll find out once you start buying stuff based on that test.


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## necromancer (Nov 25, 2014)

yes i understand & thank you i should have added more info to the post.
was just making notice of the original photos in the auction where i noticed the shadow of the plating

i realize that the only true results will be after gold recovery, refinement & weighing.

over all i just can't believe there is enough gold to warrant the sold price + shipping costs
this forum has taught me much & helping others is just another manner of paying it forward.

maybe one day people won't be buying $20.00 worth of gold for $35.00

thanks again GSP for pointing out what i didn't ad to my post !! will try to make things more clear next time.


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## macfixer01 (Nov 25, 2014)

goldsilverpro said:


> At 30 micro" thick, which is about as thick as you'll ever see gold on fingers, you'll never be able to feel the gold edge. What you're feeling is the nickel plating and the much thicker copper (from 45 to 90 times thicker than the gold).
> 
> No offense, but I think your test is meaningless. You'll find out once you start buying stuff based on that test.




As Goldsilverpro said, the vast majority of the thickness is going to be the copper and nickel and probably has little relation to the amount of gold. The differences you're seeing are likely the result of the bare copper board it was manufactured from. Bare copper boards are identified by Ounces. A 1 Ounce board has a copper thickness equal to 1 Ounce of copper spread over a square foot or about 1.4 Mils thick. A 2 Ounce board has a copper thickness equal to 2 Ounces of copper spread over a square foot or about 2.8 Mils thick.


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## Anonymous (Nov 26, 2014)

Dave.

The plating is actually slightly thicker on commercial grade IT equipment like the kit you've pictured however as GSP has said this is but a fraction of the thickness that you feel. It's also thicker in terms of tiny amounts :shock: 

From experience I would suggest that you use the standard close cut finger calculation for these (when cut close) as the additional thickness of the gold is counterbalanced by the additional board thickness. I get roughly the same yield by weight from 5Kg of these mixed with server PSU power edges as I would get from PCI cards or RAM fingers. 

It balances out. 

Hope that's of some help.

Jon


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## necromancer (Nov 26, 2014)

spaceships said:


> Dave.
> 
> The plating is actually slightly thicker on commercial grade IT equipment like the kit you've pictured however as GSP has said this is but a fraction of the thickness that you feel. It's also thicker in terms of tiny amounts :shock:
> 
> ...



thanks !!

this saves me a bunch of trimming. so its 1.5g to 2g per lb of close cut fingers... if i remember right
i dont cut & save them i just sell them whole. only thing i save is the server power supply edges.

you saved me a lot of work spaceships, to bad your a man or i would have offered you a big kiss :roll: (just joking)


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 26, 2014)

I would imagine that, when they etch out the copper between the fingers, the edges of the fingers can be rough or smooth or in-between, depending on many things. For example, the condition of the etchant, time in the etchant, etc, might be factors. The nickel could be thickest on the edges. These things could create an area for your fingernail to catch. Lots of possibilities why one is rougher than the other but I can't see how the very thin gold would be a factor.

Over the years, I've played around with various ways to simply determine the thickness of gold plating. Using a pencil eraser and counting the strokes to cut through the gold, for example. This test is fairly subjective, though, and will only differentiate, reliably, between flash gold (4-5 micro") and thick gold (say, 30 micro"). Also, if the gold is very thin, it will appear pale, since the color of the white nickel can show though the gold somewhat.

In the old days, we used beta back-scattering devices (Microderm, Betascope, etc.) for thickness measurements. They involved using Promethium 147 and one of the Thallium isotopes (can't remember which one) as the source of beta particles. Now, mainly due to the dangers of beta emitters, they primarily use x-ray. I've been told that the XRF guns can be adapted for this. However, I'm pretty sure that accurate standards (not cheap) must be used for both types. I know they are needed for the beta-backscattering devices. 

The most accurate way to measure apparent gold thickness is to accurately measure the gold surface area, refine the sample, and make the calculation. Either recover the gold or analyze the solution. Even this can be slightly inaccurate, since the density of gold plating is never actually 19.3. All gold plating is somewhat porous and the density can be as low as 17, or less, depending mainly on the plating parameters used, the brand or type of plating bath used, and the condition of the plating bath.

When gold is plated, the porosity doesn't normally enter into the calculations. Assuming they want 30 micro", they first measure and calculate the surface area and then deposit enough gold (based on amperage, time, and the efficiency of the bath) so that, if there was no porosity, there would be 30 micro" of gold. In reality, due to the porosity, the gold would be thicker than 30 micro".


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