# Total Noob with some vintage GE PCB Boards. What should I Do?



## Illmotions (Jul 19, 2017)

So I founds these things in a landfill and there is more but besides that take a look at these. One was listed a retail brand new $750.00. The company selling them actually tried selling pre owned ones listed for that price at $90.00. And the the person I talked too said they were ancient and that I would be better off scraping them. So after extensive research on eBay for compleated listings and there being none. I think my best bet it to try to reclaim the metals. 

They have these little plugin fingers that are a pretty decent surface area that are def dull looking gold color but they slightly are magnetic so I dunno what's underneath. Also that's the only valuable thing I can see just by looking at them. So check the pictures and tell me what u guys think.

So the pins are the smaller one I hit w a torch and there is a close up of both scratched w a razor. Thanks


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## nickvc (Jul 20, 2017)

Welcome to the forum.
If they were mine I would certainly sort out a few of the better condition ones and try listing them on eBay with an opening bid of say $10 per board and see what happens, don forget to add shipping costs.
They will find their own level and if you get no bids then scrap them, you never know they could sell for a lot more than $10 to the right collectors.


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## Illmotions (Jul 20, 2017)

Ok so for the sake of scraping are the pins basically the only valuable thing on these? I saw somewhere that I should put them in a acid solution that dissolves copper and the gold will fall to the bottom. Is copper magnetic? Dunno why but I forgot and these are slightly magnetic


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## jimdoc (Jul 20, 2017)

The gold is plated on a thin coating of nickel, that is what is making them slightly magnetic.
Study the forum and understand all the safety aspects BEFORE you do anything with acids.


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## Smack (Jul 20, 2017)

List all the boards on ebay and sell them or find a local buyer.


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## Illmotions (Jul 20, 2017)

Yeah not a single sale online for any of these boards. I did a compleated search on eBay and not one has sold. I have about 60 of them. Not sure about a local buyer. Would I be better off sending them into a precious metal refiner? Not sure how they were even considered to be worth 750. 

So if I was to find someone local should I be looking for reclaiming or how should I go about finding somebody cause I haven't been able to find anyone


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## FrugalRefiner (Jul 20, 2017)

The gold plated parts in the first, second, and fourth pictures look like what I know as punch down connectors. They were used heavily in phone systems a few decades ago when I dealt with such stuff. A technician could quickly connect and disconnect different connectors with a punch down tool by just putting a wire over the open ends of the slots he wanted to connect and pushing on the tool. It would force the wire down into the rounded notch and nip off any excess wire. If that's what they are, they're probably just gold plated base metal. 

The transistor in the third picture _might_ have a tiny bit of gold inside.

I'm no ewaste expert, so I could be wrong.

Dave


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## everydayisalesson (Jul 20, 2017)

An items retail price is about the technology in said item. I just scrapped out a $250,000 server which had about 80 dollars worth of gold inside. It probably had another 80 or 100 dollars of gold I didn't get. Those boards might be worth about a dollar a piece if you're lucky.


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## g_axelsson (Jul 21, 2017)

FrugalRefiner said:


> The gold plated parts in the first, second, and fourth pictures look like what I know as punch down connectors. They were used heavily in phone systems a few decades ago when I dealt with such stuff. A technician could quickly connect and disconnect different connectors with a punch down tool by just putting a wire over the open ends of the slots he wanted to connect and pushing on the tool. It would force the wire down into the rounded notch and nip off any excess wire. If that's what they are, they're probably just gold plated base metal.
> 
> The transistor in the third picture _might_ have a tiny bit of gold inside.
> 
> ...


Yeah, you're wrong! :lol: 

At least on the detail about punch down connectors. This is a standard connector that was used to connect boards to back planes or cables. The other side looks like that too, just rotated 90 degrees.
The gold plating is, as many contemporary connectors, quite decent. If you dissolve away the base metal you are left with a hollow shell.

Looks like telecom boards from the 1960-1970 era and I don't think there is any interest from collectors. I would collect the connectors and transistors, the rest I would sell at whatever price the local scrapyard would give me just to get rid of it.

But even though the plating is good I would agree with the valuation of everydayisalesson and put the value around a dollar each. To get a more accurate value you would need to add together surfaces and weigh the transistors.

Göran


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## Illmotions (Jul 21, 2017)

Ok yeah I figured the connectors were it. Thinking maybe nickel underneath? It's magnetic whatever it is but only slightly


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## g_axelsson (Jul 21, 2017)

Yeah, there is virtually always a nickel barrier between copper based alloys and gold. Gold migrates when plated directly onto copper so the choice is between a thick gold layer or a nickel barrier with a thin gold layer. Guess what's better both mechanically and economically... :wink: 

Göran


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## Findm-Keepm (Jul 22, 2017)

If those black TO-can transistors are Germanium type or UJTs (GE famously made most of the UJTs), the real value could be there. Edit: Those pink silver mica caps hold some recoverable silver too.

I have about 800 or so boards with the same gold plated connector - I'm in the harvesting mode right now, and I just break them off at the board. The "tail" that goes through to the solder side ain't work chasing or desoldering from the board. Breaking them off avoids the solder altogether.

Where are you located? You said you knew of no buyer locally, but maybe others here do...


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