# My shipment to a refiner



## pcscrapper (Nov 18, 2013)

Just curious to find out what the value of these items, Now the memory stick didn't have any chips on them some may have some but lets exclude that, the modems boards are out of cable modems, and of course cdrom boards 

what would the actual value be on these boards perhaps just the memory. 

Your input is greatly apprecitated. 


I’ve 414lbs of memory boards or unpoplated gold plated boards,

I’ve 497lbs of modem boards

I’ve 83lbs of cdrom boards,

If you need pictures of the modem boards I belive I’ve them, Let me know scott thanks.. in advance


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## Smack (Nov 19, 2013)

If you've shipped it to a refiner like the title suggests then time will tell what the value is.


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## niteliteone (Nov 19, 2013)

If you net over $200 after ALL expenses are deducted,(ie. cost of material +shipping +processing...) then you have done a lot better than I would have paid for that mix of low grade scrap.
Here in California, blank or unpopulated PC boards are considered Breakage that runs from $0.03 to $0.08 per pound with the gold plated in the higher limits.
All electronic waste is sent out of state for processing /recovery so the prices are lower than average


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## rickbb (Nov 19, 2013)

Check the various web sites for buyers, several members here work for them and buy stuff. I use one that pays quite well for most of what you have.


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## pcscrapper (Nov 24, 2013)

ok, I want to say thanks in advance for the replies but I'm missing something here, when I added up the price of what I could of gotten by selling out right it would of been close to 7 g, so I figure If I would to send it the blank memory boards reject that is that has silver/tin and under the contact area where the chips goes are gold plated and the fingers are gold plated, On the unpopulated boards, there is gold with in each inch of the board, and double sided, 

along with that, there were CPU fibers boards minus the copper and the pins, and there were about 30lbs of ceramic eproms, 

and of course there were cdrom boards, and modem boards highspeed modem boards that I could of sold to a company for 2.50 a pound, and the cdrom boards were going for 6 dollars a pound and the unpopulated gold plated boards would of gone for 8.00 per pound and memory board which has gold on both sides and silver/tin on both side would of gotten 11.00 per pound so basically close to 7 g, I got less then 4 grand, 

My theory is that they took it and mixed it all together, and did the assay on it, and mixing the high grade boards with the low grade boards you're goning to get mostly low grade, 

its like one pound of flour and half pound of salt you gonna git more flour then salt, 

some of the ram had chips on them to as they didn't remove all the chip I can't caculate the mount of ram chips on them but i would say at lest 20lbs of them had em, 

I basially lost on this deal, and I've yet to hear from my point of contact but did call the company and they will review it in the lab the whole bar and let me know monday, 

any suggestion or anyone prefer a company that has good communication, 

I also asked for My slag back and a full accountablity No slag, and no full accountablity. 

Missing platinum out of the refine. 

any input would be greatly appreacitated in advance and I do have photos of all the stuff that I sent up. Thanks in adance


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## johnboyrox (Nov 25, 2013)

Did they call it a "shred and sample"? I recently sold a load to a refiner and their shred and sample process didn't pay off as well as I know it should have. I had a large load of motherboards. The vast majority of these boards were older multi-processor boards I had been cherry picking for better than a year. I had very good yield data on what I dropped off from previous endeavors. When I finally got paid, I got within a few cents on the dollar of the price that someone else offered to pay for them outright..."Shred and Sample" my rear-end. I think the reality of it all is that when they say they are refining these small (to them) batches, they aren't. They are just guess-timating. I think the stuff I was hoping to get refined state-side and keep the values in america, probably got sold out of country.

I am not arguing with them about their method. I just won't use them anymore.


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## yar (Nov 25, 2013)

Did either one of you have your materials represented by someone ? Shipping material blind to a refiner leaves you open for them to do what they want and to pay what they want.


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## pcscrapper (Nov 26, 2013)

am looking for somone on my next batch to represent Me, 

I was told by the company that Its ok to toss in my processor into my motherboards and I said BS. 

that will just bring down the value of my cpu to little to none. 

so I'm thinking they think I'm just stupid, 

I've pictures of what I sent and if someone could just give me a round about what I sent doesn't has to be close just about figure that would be great 

also if You've someone that represent and has a track record of representing company would be interested in discussing the possiblity of having them on board Thanks in advance


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## CBentre (Nov 27, 2013)

pcscrapper said:


> Just curious to find out what the value of these items, Now the memory stick didn't have any chips on them some may have some but lets exclude that, the modems boards are out of cable modems, and of course cdrom boards
> 
> what would the actual value be on these boards perhaps just the memory.
> 
> ...



Just curious on how you were able to get a refinery to process 1100lbs of boards? I've asked on this forum on more then one occasion for a company that would refine boards and the best answer was minimum of 20,000-30,000lbs lots. I also had a company I was dealing with offer to do it on 3000lbs lots but when it came time they refused to acknowledge it and then I made myself refuse to send them anymore. Am i missing something here. Thanks for your time...


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## CBentre (Nov 27, 2013)

Ok never mind the last comment, just read your other post and I see who you sent your materials to thanks.


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## johnny309 (Nov 29, 2013)

Is a fact of the thinking.....everybody have internet....a ton of board contain...X gold..Y silver.......they want the same amount for the refiner,regardless the work,the costs...and they want the money fast.....
So...if you have 2 pounds of pins...sell those on E-Bay.....because nobody can hold 5 Tons in his backyard....2 times per month....
The middle man have to make money....if "HE" or "SHE" was not on the market.....everybody will still throw the boards on landfill.....
They are doing some money and everybody else....includind those with ...."I have a computer,how can I get the gold out?".....
If somebody misunderstood what I say....please PM me...no need to polute this forum.....


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## pcscrapper (Nov 30, 2013)

Bottom line is that, there a few issues I've in place., 

one of the issues is this, these are ram boards, mostly without chips, but high grade ram board with gold fingers and gold plating on the contact where the chips go, they are reject boards, so ontop of those chips are silver/tin solder, 

on the other part of boards that I've sent in are unpopulated boards with fingers, and gold plated, no silver just pure boards, 

Modem boards from high speed internet has gold plating on the connectors and usb connectors and on the board has no metal, and gold outline tracing, and plenty of ic chips. 

now cdrom boards has lots of chips on them, and if they are newer they will have more silver / tin solder then the old days lead solder, 

along in that batch of highgrade boards I've included, Green CPU Fibers without the heatsink, and pins, and also IC ceramic chips with gold fingers, 

its really hard to see that they only got 2 3/4 oz of gold out all of this, and only 0.18oz of palidum, no platinum, and silver I have to check it was like 130oz and copper was close to 200lbs, 

the numbers just don't add up, and at the begining I asked for a full accountablity of everything and also asked for My slag back, 

When I got the settlment report, I called the compant as I was kinda concerned about the value that they placed on this, and I asked them about My slag and they said, we were not informed that you wanted your slag back, and I then asked them, well where is it, and they said they don't have it, I informed them to check the email that I orignally sent and in that email it does states full accoutablilty and request slag back, all of sudden the company stated oh.. We've it on hold, another flag, 

When I talked to my point of contact during the process I'm asked him a dumb question but inteligent question in my mind, I wanted to see if he would be honest, and he informed Me yes do by all mean toss your processors in with the motherboards, and I'm like I'm not that stupid, if you toss your processors in the boards, and they grind it mill it and so forth, lets say you've 4000lbs of boards and only 200lbs of processors what are you going to get most of... boards in the sample... 

so the way they are doing sample is not the correct way, They should do sample base on product, processors sample it, motherboards sample it, modem boards sample it, ram boards sample it and so forth, yes its a bit more work but in the long run it will show the pure number 

simply put, if you take a pound of flour and a half pound of salt what are you going to get out of that 8% sample... FLOUR. mostly. 

thats where the break down. 

now they have the whole ingot ... they out of break it down from there and pay out based on what they get out of that ingot, or bar, not sample. sample is the wrong way of doing it, 

to wait 40 to 50 days to get a test result base on sample just doesn't pay out, 

I'm fighting this, and I've picture and all of my items were all seperate, they should of taken my material better care of, and called me if they had any question, I've learned alot... 

the other flag I had was They informed Me that I could not witness the sampling of my item, I felt that kind of odd, if they can sample it why can't I witness the sampling of it, 

I've again learned a great deal and I'll continue to fight this, and I've seen other settlement and they got paid more for motherboards, and less poundage then I got paid for more weight and more high grade. 

I'm looking for someone that be willing to assay the sample that they have sent Me, Your help would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks to all those input, 

and lastly... I will no longer deal with the company as I feel that they tend to mislead people, and to throw out the word too bad its what it's I say BS. 

We all work hard for our money, taking the time to pack it, ship it, and to buy it from the customers basically I've lost money on this deal. I could of made more money selling it to a third party then to do it myself. 

I'll from now on this day forward will use a thirdparty to represent my materials. so those that do this kind of work Please send me a private mesg. thanks.


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## Smack (Nov 30, 2013)

Everything looks right to me but the silver. I didn't get to look at your material but I would think there should be 4 to 7 oz. there in Ag. If you want to make money, stop paying for your material unless it has all been taken down and sorted, cleaned and ready to go to the refinery. I pay for very little of the volume that comes in my shop.


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## g_axelsson (Nov 30, 2013)

pcscrapper said:


> simply put, if you take a pound of flour and a half pound of salt what are you going to get out of that 8% sample... FLOUR. mostly.


I'm sorry for you if the refiner isn't treating you fair, but in one part they are right and your logic is faulty.

If you mix 1 pound of flour and 1/2 pound of salt and then take a small sample you naturally get mostly flour. More exactly 67%. But if the sample is well mixed and homogenous then it will show that in the mixture there is 67% of 1.5 pound of flour = 1 pound and 33% of 1.5 pound of salt = 1/2 pound of salt.
In the same way, if you toss your ram boards and processors with the motherboards it is still the same amount of gold. If a representative sample were taken (a good description is somewhere on the forum) it should show the total amount of gold in the lot. Of course it will contain mostly motherboards as that was the main part of the lot.
No amount of sorting will ever create more gold in your scrap.

If a refiner use the same process for memory sticks, processors and circuit boards then there is no reason to sort the material and you could just as well mix it in from the beginning.

Now, the main question is, did they take a proper representative sample from your lot and analyzed it or just eyeballed it and cheated you out of some of your precious metals. In that part I don't know anything. That is the reason that you should be at the site or send an independant representative to oversee the sampling and also keep a sample for your self if there is a dispute.

Göran


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## eastky (Nov 30, 2013)

I have a depopulated stick of memory so I did some math for you.

My stick had 8 chips measures 5 and a quarter inches long and about 1 and a quarter inches wide. It has the gold plated flash pads on one side and the gold fingers. The gold is not very thick on the plated pads. The real gold is in the fingers.

Understand the whole memory stick isn't heavy plated just the fingers get a good plating of gold. If any of the memory had chips soldered to them then the chips removed there is a lot of weight in that solder. If the had chips on them and you cut them off leaving the legs of the chips on the board that is added weight and you yield of gold will go down quickly.

I weighed my stick of memory and then I cut off the fingers and weighed them. The stick weighed 11.7 grams with fingers.
I cut the fingers off and the fingers weighed 1.1 grams.

You stated you had 414 pounds of memory sticks my figures would be 38.717 sticks per pound times 414 = 16029 sticks of memory. 

Just figuring the weight of the fingers in that amount of sticks it would take 411 sticks to get 1 pound of fingers with little to no green on them. That 16029 sticks of memory would give you 39 pounds of fingers.

Figuring 1.5 grams of gold per pound that would give you 58.5 grams of gold at $40.00 per gram equals $2340.00

I haven't messed with cd rom boards but I can say that including them in a lot of memory sticks would make your gold yield drop :shock: VERY :shock: quickly. I look at a cd rom board as being equal to a low quality board out of a small printer or fax machine. The board serves it purpose without being a component that will have a lot of precious metals involved.

You say you got close to 4 grand out of your lot I don't see where you did all that bad. What were the fees you paid and what was the percentages of the spot price they paid you on your metals recovered.

Everybody and their brother has gotten into the gold from computer idea. Just because someone is paying $10.00 a pound for memory doesn't mean it is feasibly to do so. The bigger a company is the lower the profit margin can be. 

Don't be blinded by what other people are paying for scrap.


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## Anonymous (Nov 30, 2013)

Eastky thank you. You worded what I was trying to say perfectly. I would not have been articulate enough to say it as well as that.

OP move on, based on the information you've given you did ok. If your RAM was all populated than it would be a different discussion but I've seen no pics so it's all theoretical.

Jon


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## pcscrapper (Dec 14, 2013)

I do have picture of these ram boards, there is also, along with the shipment like I said, about 30lbs of processors without the heatsink and pins, and also, about 20lbs of gold ic ceramic chips, and about 100lbs of the gold plated boards, that was in the mix of the ram, I will get some of the picture that I took before I shipped up on the site, so You can see what They look like, this is the exact amount of each item that was shipped

10014lbs of upopulated gold plated boards, will provide pics, 
35lbs modems board high grade
39lbs "
51lbs"
40lbs'
54lbs"
49lbs"
41lbs"
50lbs"
40lbs"
52lbs"
44lbs of cdrom boards
39lbs of cdrom boards
62lbs of High Grade memory boards with gold pads, 
62"
62"
62"
66"
20" of gold leg ic ceramic chips
30" of cpu green fiber boards without heatsink and pins. 
for a total of 1044lbs 
It ws shipped to them, they came back with a total weight of 963lbs
Till this day I still have not recv My slag as I've requested, 
They also called me last week and said the value of my sample went up a snibbit. 

I've over 3000lbs of motherboards, and about another 2000lbs of misc boards high grades around 1000lbs and I'm looking for a new refiner and a person that will represent My company, 

I will never ever do this again, When You not around the mouse will play . 

I feel as tho the company has not lived up to its reputation, they say they are going to do something about it and yet they haven't . They promosed to mail out the slag and yet haven't, they just frustrate Me, 

Thanks.


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## Smack (Dec 15, 2013)

Thought I would post some info with prices for representation of material meant for refining. Just so you know what to expect and can make sure you have enough material to justify refining with representation or to keep collecting until you can.


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## pcscrapper (Dec 16, 2013)

what was the total weight.? 

I've over 4000lbs think it would be worth the time and money to have someone represent My company,


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## Smack (Dec 16, 2013)

No, on 4k lbs. of misc. circuit boards...not worth it at all.


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## patnor1011 (Dec 19, 2013)

@ pcscrapper
I would have little problem to call rejected ram stick without IC chips as high grade board. Mainly on sticks which do (or should) have multiple IC as there is where most of gold is. Inside IC chip.
Board without components, notably IC chips cant be called high grade. Some buyers even devalue your board if IC chips are removed. Most of buyers will devalue your board for sure if s/n BGA chip is removed.


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## pcscrapper (Dec 20, 2013)

why is it not worth it, when I've sorted my boards according. 

MOBO p4 small socket, 
Mobo large sockets
Dual cpu large socket
dual cpu small socket
cisco switches boards high grade
Cisco Phone systems high grade
and Fingers boards, 
and I keep all forgeign boards out of the mix, color one that is. 

I did the final weight of all of my boards and came out with 5874lbs total
That is not including CDROM Boards, Harddrives boards, and over 400lbs of cpu's

so what do You suggest.?


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## rickbb (Dec 20, 2013)

I suggest you send a sample batch to several different places. Batches that represent you totals. If you send an identical shipment to 3 or 4 different places and get the same from all, then you have a realistic picture of what they are worth for the future. If one places pays more than another, then you have found a new place to do business.

I have much smaller lots than you, (too small to send directly to a refiner), but that is what I've done. Sent identical lots to 3 different places, I'm now doing business with the place that paid over twice what the other 2 did.

I only worry about 2 things, is this going to be refined responsibly and not off-shored to some 3rd dumping ground. And what is my return. If I get fair return and assurances that it stays in country for refining then they get the business.


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## Smack (Dec 20, 2013)

Just throw everything your not going to process yourself into gaylord boxes meant for the refinery, stop wasting time worrying about separating types of materials, it's going to get shredded down to a powder and all mixed together any ways. Unless of course your going to pay to have ALL those different lots processed separately by the refinery. Next time save up enough material to justify representation. Sipi, 1000 lb. min. lot, $1.00 per pound processing fee with a $750.00 min. charge. If you had 20k pounds the processing fee per pound could be less. They quoted me .80 cents per pound processing fee on 30k pounds four months ago.


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## pcscrapper (Dec 22, 2013)

why throw all your highgrades in with your low grades, I would think that would lower the over all value on everything, 

Do You know who refine low brown grades boards, espeically monitors boards, it has lots of copper and some palidium in it, but is it worth it over all.? 

and second what about power supplies, who refines that, I've 3000lbs of just in powr supplies, and another 1000 just in power boards, 

I've been told not to mix high with low and vice versa and its really hard to decipher everyone opion, and Like to not lose in the long run espeically when I pay to get this stuff in, 

Ive over 100lbs in ceramic processors from pent pro to pentium to 386/486 amd the list goes on. 

Am really looking for someone that will take the time and understand the reycle business and Help others grow and not make a drastic mistake, 

When people come inout our facility, We work with them and teach them the do's and don'ts and would hope someone on this board would offer the same. 

any help would be greatly appreicated. Thanks.


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## eastky (Dec 22, 2013)

pcscrapper I am going to give you my opinion. It will only do you good if you step back and think about it. Your blood pressure will probably shoot up and you may throw things. Might even cuss me a little but don't do it here on the forum.

The metal market is very shaky and unpredictable right now. You keep pouring money it to something that you don't have a grasp on and you can and will lose your shirt and everything else real fast. It might take a week a couple months or a year or it could happen over night. If you don't start doing some research and understanding how things work you are going to be caught with your feet in the fire and no water to put it out.

How long have you been doing this? Reading your post it seems like you just got up one morning recently and decided to start a escrap business. Do you have very deep pockets by that I mean can you take a 10 grand hit and stay up right and on your feet or are you going to sink? The people on the forum cant tell you how or what way to handle your business. 

How big of a business are you? How many people work for you? Where are you located? What kind of trucks do you have? Do you haul your material or do you ship it out? How big is your building? Are you working out of your 1 or 2 car garage storing stuff in 5 storage buildings out back? Are your pockets deep enough to buy and hold? What do you eat for lunch?
Do you have enough workers to handle the amount of material you buy? Do you have to many workers and not enough material coming in? You see pcscrapper there are a lot of questions that you have to answer yourself.

The escrap business is a shady racket. I mean no disrespect and I am not putting you down but you are the low man on the totem pole. Welcome to the world of the escrap business. You are at the mercy of the people you buy material from. Gold recovery from escrap have people thinking the computer they would have set out on the curb for trash 5 years ago has gold running out of it by the bucket full. 

The people you buy material from takes some skin off your behind and when you send your material to the refinery they take you rest of the skin and it hurts to sit down from the stinging. It seems like about every 5 years a new study comes out with the amount of metals recovered from escrap. The numbers keep going down which it should but the refiners know and you don't. That's the catch 21 right there. The actual numbers wont come out. There will always be speculation.
That's what the scrap business is anyways speculation. I do it you do it the people on this forum do it. Speculation isn't a sure thing its guessing and hoping for the best. The saying on the forum is guess low so you wont be disappointed and if your numbers are higher that's extra so be happy. A sure thing isn't a sure thing until the money is in your hand or in the bank. Buy low Sell high Collect early Pay late 

In one of your post you said that you sent in green fiber cpus without the heat sink and pins. Are you talking about the pinless cpu? Are you talking about taking the pins off the green cpu? If you are taking the pins off the green cpus from my understanding you wont have any gold left in the fiber the gold is in the pins on those. You aren't one of those shysters on ebay selling gold drops from cpus are you? That's bad mojo.


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## Smack (Dec 22, 2013)

pcscrapper said:


> why throw all your highgrades in with your low grades, I would think that would lower the over all value on everything,
> 
> any help would be greatly appreicated. Thanks.



You get paid based on an assay of the material you take in, explain how mixing all types of boards together lowers their value. You do know there is x amount of metals in each board and it's physically impossible to alter that fact by mixing them together right. While your sitting on thousands of pounds of power supply boards not knowing what to do with them, I'm getting paid for mine. How many pounds of power supply boards do you have to have before you can justify having them refined separately?

Help? Stop paying for scrap electronics that need to be taken apart.


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## FrugalRefiner (Dec 22, 2013)

pcscrapper said:


> why throw all your highgrades in with your low grades, I would think that would lower the over all value on everything,


pcscrapper,

Let me try to explain it another way. If you're selling your scrap to a refinery that samples your lot and pays based on the assay of that sample, there is no need to separate different types of scrap.

Let's say you have 10 rolls of pennies, 10 rolls of nickles, 10 rolls of dimes, and 10 rolls of quarters. Keeping them separate, you know the pennies are only worth $5.00, the nickles worth $20.00, the dimes worth $50.00, and the quarters worth $100.00. All together, they are worth $175.00. It doesn't matter whether you keep them separate or dump them all into a big pile together, they're still worth $175.00. You haven't lowered the value of the quarters by mixing them together with the other "lower grade" coins. If they are all thoroughly mixed together, and then a sample of 1/4 of them are taken, the sample will have _approximately_ $43.75 worth of coins. If we multiply the value of the sample times 4, we still come up with a total value of $175.00. That is the idea behind sampling, and that is how large refineries work.

Now if you're selling your scrap to a company like Boardsort, for example, it makes sense to keep your different types of scrap separate. They don't sample your lot. They pay varying prices for the different varieties based on many, many tons of the material they have processed in the past. So if we continue the example of the coins above, and you keep the coins separate, it's easy for the buyer to look at your lot and quickly determine the value. But if you mix them altogether and take them to someone who only has the time to look at your big mixed lot of coins, they are going to have to estimate the value of your lot. In other words, they have to guess, and when they have to guess, they are likely to guess on the low side to protect themselves. In that case, you will probably get less than $175.00.

It just depends on the type of buyer you're dealing with. If it's someone who thoroughly mixes the lot, takes a representative sample, and pays based on the assay of the sample, there is no need to keep things separate. If it's someone who has to take a quick look at your lot and guess at the overall value, you would probably be better off keeping things separate.

I hope that helps.
Dave


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## pcscrapper (Dec 30, 2013)

its not misc boards, they are seperate boards, Motherboards, Highgrade boards, Modems boards, power boards, server boards, and etc, NO Low grade boards, would like to find a outsource for them so I can refine them as well, any suggestion on other refiner in the midwest that I can goto to refine My product where thier is a Represeentive that will overseas My product Your help is greatly apprecated in advance. 

one more thing, Power supplies, I've about 3000lbs of them and would love to get more then just 30 cents a pound. who refine things, that would also be much appreciated in advance thanks.


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## Anonymous (Dec 30, 2013)

Where are you based scrapper?

Jon


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