# Should i buy gold RAM sticks at this rate?



## zan13898 (Nov 14, 2018)

Hey guys!, ive successfully refined gold from gold fingers last time (which was my first time, phew), now i want to go big, (but not too big), i got a seller who's willing to sell me 2KG or 4.41Lb of DDR1, DDR2 mixed RAMS sticks for 42$, i think he'll let me have it for 38 USD (38 cuz ive changed it from my currency to USD), and at this moment im not sure if i should purchase them! my other costs are as follows

10% HCL 1 litre is 0.70 USD
H2O2 6% 500ML is 3.30 USD
Bleach is just so cheap, plus its just sodium hypochlorite, no NaOH, goes well with dilute HCL already
and any other thing is so cheap to even measure!, and one more thing, while any profit would be welcome, but this is my hobby, id just like to have a good story to tell if i successfully make it!...

would i be able to break even atleast?, and if im looking for profit, how much?, i know with RAMS every time a person does this job outcomes is different cuz of the different brand of RAMS and stuff, if you could please let me know your past experience, your best and worse, that would be amazing and a lot helpful!...

Thnks in advance, you guys are awesome!


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## kernels (Nov 15, 2018)

At that price you would also have to get the Gold out of the ICs to make a (small) profit. I normally pay US$17 per kg for DDR2/3 ram and around US$14 for regular "legs" ram. 

This is a good compromise for the E-Waste collection guy I deal with, he gets more than selling to the scrap metal dealer and I get it at a price where I make a bit of profit (as long as I'm not accounting my time)


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## silversaddle1 (Nov 15, 2018)

Current scrap price in US for gold edge memory is around $16.25 a pound. I sell mine anytime it hits $17.00. Hope it gets back up there soon as I'm sitting on around a thousand pounds of it. :G


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## anachronism (Nov 15, 2018)

silversaddle1 said:


> Current scrap price in US for gold edge memory is around $16.25 a pound. I sell mine anytime it hits $17.00. Hope it gets back up there soon as I'm sitting on around a thousand pounds of it. :G



That "scrap price" is based upon people harvesting chips and certain types of RAM from batches that people miss. It doesn't reflect the gold value one iota, which in many cases is considerably less than that.


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## zan13898 (Nov 15, 2018)

so basically i shouldn't buy it?, in your experience 1 KG or 2.2 pounds of Rams sticks = how much gold?, if i make atleast 1g of gold from 1 KG of rams, ill break even...anyway i can make 1.5g?


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## anachronism (Nov 15, 2018)

You certainly can't make 1.5g from a Kg of RAM sticks. 1g is possible on certain types of memory but not on the majority of RAM. 

Buy it as a learning process if you like. It will certainly help you with a number of processes that you will find useful but bear in mind that your process losses on such a small amount will be the same as if you were doing 10 times the amount. 

Jon


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## zan13898 (Nov 15, 2018)

so lets assume, I buy 1 KG of RAM sticks at 19USD, i can make 0.6-0.7g of gold?, I can still sell the leftover ram sticks as I know someone who would buy it for 4.5USD per KG...Should i continue?

3KG RAMS 57USD (19 USD x 3KG)
Chemicals 8USD MAX
Re-selling
Of sticks -(11USD) (4.5USD x 2.5KG(assuming rest 0.5KG would be the fingers i cut of)
Total Cost 54USD

Total Gold
extracted 80USD (2g, assuming 0.65g per KG of RAMS)

Profit 26USD + a hell a lot of knowledge, i call that profit as well......

is this accurate?


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## silversaddle1 (Nov 15, 2018)

anachronism said:


> silversaddle1 said:
> 
> 
> > Current scrap price in US for gold edge memory is around $16.25 a pound. I sell mine anytime it hits $17.00. Hope it gets back up there soon as I'm sitting on around a thousand pounds of it. :G
> ...



That may be so, but that is what most buyers are paying right now.


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## anachronism (Nov 15, 2018)

zan13898 said:


> so lets assume, I buy 1 KG of RAM sticks at 19USD, i can make 0.6-0.7g of gold?, I can still sell the leftover ram sticks as I know someone who would buy it for 4.5USD per KG...Should i continue?



What do you mean by the leftover ram sticks? Do you think you are getting most of the gold out of the fingers?


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## anachronism (Nov 15, 2018)

silversaddle1 said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > silversaddle1 said:
> ...



Well China just shut the doors on stripping certain BGA from RAM. In fact thanks to some politics and tariffs going on they have an intense dislike for anything coming through from the US so you might want to contact your buyers and find out whether it's dropped by 20% or not lately. 

That's where it's all going, like it or not. So keep an eye on that market.


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## snoman701 (Nov 16, 2018)

anachronism said:


> silversaddle1 said:
> 
> 
> > Current scrap price in US for gold edge memory is around $16.25 a pound. I sell mine anytime it hits $17.00. Hope it gets back up there soon as I'm sitting on around a thousand pounds of it. :G
> ...



Have you personally witnessed "harvesting chips"? I am skeptical. I know the testing of ram is alive and well, I just have trouble seeing the harvesting of chips as a viable business model. 




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## anachronism (Nov 16, 2018)

snoman701 said:


> Have you personally witnessed "harvesting chips"? I am skeptical. I know the testing of ram is alive and well, I just have trouble seeing the harvesting of chips as a viable business model.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Ive more than witnessed it. 8)


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## ChemGeek (Nov 24, 2018)

One important information of OP is missing:
Are these RAM-s with gold fingers or tinned fingers?


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## g_axelsson (Nov 24, 2018)

I think it's safe to assume it's gold plated. I've never seen tinned ram since 72 pin SIMM and he told us it was gold ram sticks mixed DDR1 and DDR2.

Göran


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