# Cell Phone Scrap



## djbradley61 (Jan 6, 2013)

Hey Everyone,

Does anyone have a good reference guide to buying cell phones for scrap? I have a few, and there is a good amount of gold in them. I am yet to refine my own gold, I am still taking the time to learn the processes thoroughly. However, as a scrap metal buyer, I would like to know what a good price per pound in USD is for cell phones, as well as any specialty phones to keep my eyes peeled for.

Thanks,

Dan


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## poudouche (Jan 6, 2013)

Welcome ,
you can buy cellphones scrap from a lot of sellers who usually sell them to the refiners 
the prices depend on the price of gold and also there are different precious metals that can be obtained not only gold 
the prices vary from $ 16 or lower to $ 21 if you ask a refiner to process your cellphone boards but you need around 1000 pounds or more 
the price for whole cellphones without the battery and the battery doors vary between $ 4 to $ 7
If you are interested to get people to sell to you just post your offer to buy and the price you will be willing to pay you will be contacted , or check e-bay as a potential source 
If you will refine the boards yourself you probably will get a better yield
regards,
pououche


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## Pantherlikher (Jan 6, 2013)

Hello.
It's kind of a tuff question since there is so many different phones.
Obviously if you can resell it for $5.00 or more, DO IT!
Other wise you will have to hit the search box and search for anything phone related. Learning how to process, collect, refine, and final products and waste will all factor into what to pay based on your situation.
Or...
You can goto boardsort.com and get an idea based on what they pay for them, add labor and profit. Then see if you can pay anything for them and still make it worth the effort.
It's kinda like asking how much is that doggy in the window?
Depends on the buyer, age, time already spent, the window, and the puppy mill.
BS.
Still trying to take my losses on kids... Any takers?


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## djbradley61 (Jan 6, 2013)

Cool. Thanks for the intel. Allow me to explain my situation a bit.

I junk cars and heavy equipment for profit. I scrap computers for profit as well. However, i keep the gold fingers and CPU's for gold recovery. I make very little off the computers between light iron and motherboard prices, but I have a pile of gold fingers, pins, and CPUs. I mean.... a PILE!. I've got a whole " USD is going to collapse any day now" mentality, and gold is all we will have left. So i guess from a recovery standpoint, If I offer 5USD/lb, will i get more than 5USD of gold out of it? Providing gold prices stay where they are. Does lazersteves video about AP get into refining cell phone boards at all?


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## Vargas (Jan 6, 2013)

In my "area"(about 100 miles from where I live) there are 2 companies that buy cellphones(without accu) for about $ 3,50 per pound BUT they don't just get the gold out, but a lot of other rare elements too that a beginner couldn't recover easily
So as a "smalltimer" I wouldn't advise to pay more than a dollar per pound. In fact I personally won't pay more than 50 cents per Kilo to a normal seller.
Starting from next week I will set up some collecting boxes in local schools for a charitable cause. So the kids throw their(and their parents) old cellphones in there, and for every kilo (2,2 pounds) I will give around 25 cent to some "Cancer Research Organisation" or to a children hospice. Of course all controlled by the school authority.


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## butcher (Jan 6, 2013)

Vargas beat me with his post,as I was typing something similar.

Large refinery's can make a profit off of many of the metals in the cell phones or other circuit boards (including base metals and the rare earth metals) that we as small operations cannot, also some of the valuable metals can be in small quantity, processing these in small lots will not be recovered or can be lost in the process, on a large scale refining these can more easily be recovered.

If you dealt in large quantities of cell phones you may get more from them by selling them to the larger operations, than from processing them yourself.


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## Vargas (Jan 6, 2013)

just did a quick search on ebay - BIG difference between ebay.com and ebay.at or de. :lol: 
scrap recovery seems to be the magic word in the US - just saw a lot of 20 phones selling for $ 183 look ->
crazy ebay and still bidding

Over here such a lot sells for maybe $2 - 5 + $ 7 for shipping (wouldn't even pay that.


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## jimdoc (Jan 6, 2013)

Vargas said:


> just did a quick search on ebay - BIG difference between ebay.com and ebay.at or de. :lol:
> scrap recovery seems to be the magic word in the US - just saw a lot of 20 phones selling for $ 183 look ->
> crazy ebay and still bidding
> 
> Over here such a lot sells for maybe $2 - 5 + $ 7 for shipping (wouldn't even pay that.



Those buyers are using them for parts or to repair. They are not going for the precious metals, they are trying to make some worthless green paper.

Jim


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## Vargas (Jan 6, 2013)

1.) btw. I don't mean to gloat or say anything half-cocked about american ebay buyers. Sometimes it's just the other way round - like with copper bars. Those cost 3 - 20 times more over here on ebay than in the US - up to $ 1,30 for a *gram* (that is $ 1300 per Kilo) - a complete mystery to me.

2.) But to stay on topic - just took 2 of my oooold "not-so-bloody-smart"-phones apart - and they look pretty good gold-wise. I'll post pics shortly. (philips fizz and olympia dual)
gotta find that box of brickphones, that I got somewhere in my garage.
So I guess, that is something to consider as well - difference between smartphones, 90ies phones and then those brickphones


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## nickvc (Jan 7, 2013)

Vargas as with many older electronics check for collector value before ripping things apart, people seem to collect just about everything these days and even the most esoteric items can have value way above their precious metal contents.


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## Vargas (Jan 11, 2013)

Yes I usually try to do this, but those two were already in a pretty bad state


Those are thumbs, click to see full image

First row of thumbs is the Philips Fizz :lol: '97 i think; just the accu had the size of a modern smartphone.
*1*

*2*

*3*

*4*



Here Olympia Dualphone (some kind of cordless I think)
*1*

*2*

*3*

*4*



Pretty much gold, right?

One question: What are those silvercolored squares or rectangles you can see on the 3rd pic in every row? What material?

PS: edited 50 or so times  , cause I tried to put a bbcode-table with the pics in here. Unfortunately doesn't work in this forum


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## Ocean (Jan 16, 2013)

I pay $12/lb for cell boards with no LCDs attached.


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## ovidiuanghel (Jan 16, 2013)

Vargas said:


> Those are thumbs, click to see full image
> One question: What are those silvercolored squares or rectangles you can see on the 3rd pic in every row? What material?



The material is steel or cooper in some cases.


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## VanMarco (Mar 9, 2013)

I don't know, I've paid around 12£/kg for mobiles, but talking about lots that contain mobiles that are even grade A and could be resold easily, like 25%/30% of the lot grade A A/B, for all the rest which are B grande I'll give it a try at selling, the rest is scrap so deducting the good ones I don't know how much I'll have paid for scrap ones


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## kane333 (Mar 10, 2013)

One place I use to source cheap cell phones for scrap are Flea Markets. I normally will only pay .25 a phone (no charger or battery included) and never more than .50 cents a piece for a cell phone and usually walk out with 10-20 a weekend hitting 3 area Flea Markets. Local Yard and Garage Sales are also a good source for cheap cell phones. The older phones, especially Nokia's, which some models have two boards per phone, I've found, have the most gold per phone. 

There's no comparison between the older phones gold content to the newer phones as can be seen in the pics below.













Some older Nokia models center and left which have 2 boards per phone. All are nicely gold plated.











Hope this helps.

Joe


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## Ocean (Mar 11, 2013)

Ocean said:


> I pay $12/lb for cell boards with no LCDs attached.



Also, before tearing up your phones, contact me [email protected] . You will get a quicker response than posting or messaging here.

for my buy back cell phone price list.

It has hundreds of models of phones that can be re-used or used for parts(broken prices available on many models), so be sure you aren't throwing away $!!


Oh, we provide pre-paid Fed Ex shipping labels for 10 lbs or more.

We send a truck if you have gaylord full.

Thanks!


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