Barn Find brought me here

[rixmix]

These are some tags

ideally it sounds like the boards need to filter through a hierarchy to optimize the most meaning and value from them.
I personally am artistic and that world is something I understand. The rest seems like rocket science to me. The hierarchy is as follows:

Art>collectors>refinery

Does that make sense?

I have been down a similar rabbit hole. Possibly the greatest return would be with collectors, but that would require a large investment of time to find the interested buyer(s). You know art, so you may have the knowledge and connections to liquidate many pieces for a fair return. Pick through what catches your eye artistically and sell through your network. The rest would quickly be bought by the fine people on this forum, I'm sure for a fair and realistic price. Remember, there is work and much knowledge to recover the precious metals here and even 10k lbs of circuit boards does not yield massive amounts of gold. More copper than anything else.
Hope this helps,
Rick

 

[recycledmatt]

Hello - your best bet to achieve max value will be to send this to a larger refiner. Deposits can be arranged on the front end, but the process can take 45-120 days depending on where they go to be smelted. These would need to be properly lotted ahead of time to achieve the maximum values.
I'd also be interested in buying these outright - [email protected] - please send me any breakdowns you have.

 

[Goldwasser]

Definitely not trying to refine myself. Just trying to figure out how to value the boards. Apparently, they are too old for boardsort and CFES and they don't have a history of buying them in quantity for this age.

For the record, Boardsort (me) does buy them. In quantity as well.

Looking back through my emails I do see where I sent a quote out a few weeks ago for a mix of a blank gold, copper, silver and tin board collection just like this, although the person requesting the quote suggested it was for their "customer" so I immediately assumed that the person I was corresponding with does not have the material in hand and is relaying the information back to the owner. Broker?

This introduces a few considerations into my quote, not red flags, just things I need to keep in mind when formulating an offer.

The person that is describing the material and providing the pictures (at least in my email conversation) may not be the material owner and potentially would not be able speak to the accuracy or the completeness of the sort. Looking at the pictures that were provided to me (not as many as being shown here) it was difficult to visually assay the boards beyond my standard offering. 10,000 pounds is a lot of weight. The person who collected these board may not have been keeping them based purely on the recovery value but instead for other "difficult to profit from" reasons, be it collectors or some other market and I'm in it for the PM's.

It would be difficult if not impossible to determine a true value of this entire lot without an in person, hands-on experience. I see where there was already an offer made by a legitimate buyer to come out to the sellers location and make an offer in person. This is the only way to purchase this material with any realistic prospect of accuracy. Either ship it out and trust the buyer, or the buyer travels out to the seller. The seller should seriously consider that offer.

Ultimately, a bulk buyer such as myself will always be extremely skeptical in the value of a mixed lot such as this based solely on pictures. I say this not on a personal level as the seller here seems very legit and I would feel totally comfortable doing business with them, no issues there at all. None. However when pricing large odd lots, the gold glitters more before the sort. Always.

Therefor looking at a unique collection such as this requires more information than what is typically practical via email, particularly during the initial contact when the details are limited. Because of this, I would (and did) offer a lower price that considers the unknowns and from that point the seller can demonstrate that the value is greater by providing additional information and allowing me to step up in price as those facts become known.

By methodically going through the entire load, an experienced buyer should be able to come to an agreement with the seller as to a fair value for the boards after all things (travel, sorting, cleaning etc...) are considered. But pictures of piles will never produce a quality quote, and 5 tons is a big pile.
I post this not only to clarify that boardsort does buy this type of material, but more so to stress the importance of presentation and circumstance. There is a level of regret on my part that I was not able to help the seller more when they first reached out to me. After reading the details and seeing more pics on GRF I see that my offer was not the strongest, but I had to operate within the reality that was presented to me at the time.

Steve's offer from NobelMetalsRecovery would be this sellers best bet, in my opinion.

 

[Bardboards]

For the record, Boardsort (me) does buy them. In quantity as well.

Looking back through my emails I do see where I sent a quote out a few weeks ago for a mix of a blank gold, copper, silver and tin board collection just like this, although the person requesting the quote suggested it was for their "customer" so I immediately assumed that the person I was corresponding with does not have the material in hand and is relaying the information back to the owner. Broker?

This introduces a few considerations into my quote, not red flags, just things I need to keep in mind when formulating an offer.

The person that is describing the material and providing the pictures (at least in my email conversation) may not be the material owner and potentially would not be able speak to the accuracy or the completeness of the sort. Looking at the pictures that were provided to me (not as many as being shown here) it was difficult to visually assay the boards beyond my standard offering. 10,000 pounds is a lot of weight. The person who collected these board may not have been keeping them based purely on the recovery value but instead for other "difficult to profit from" reasons, be it collectors or some other market and I'm in it for the PM's.

It would be difficult if not impossible to determine a true value of this entire lot without an in person, hands-on experience. I see where there was already an offer made by a legitimate buyer to come out to the sellers location and make an offer in person. This is the only way to purchase this material with any realistic prospect of accuracy. Either ship it out and trust the buyer, or the buyer travels out to the seller. The seller should seriously consider that offer.

Ultimately, a bulk buyer such as myself will always be extremely skeptical in the value of a mixed lot such as this based solely on pictures. I say this not on a personal level as the seller here seems very legit and I would feel totally comfortable doing business with them, no issues there at all. None. However when pricing large odd lots, the gold glitters more before the sort. Always.

Therefor looking at a unique collection such as this requires more information than what is typically practical via email, particularly during the initial contact when the details are limited. Because of this, I would (and did) offer a lower price that considers the unknowns and from that point the seller can demonstrate that the value is greater by providing additional information and allowing me to step up in price as those facts become known.

By methodically going through the entire load, an experienced buyer should be able to come to an agreement with the seller as to a fair value for the boards after all things (travel, sorting, cleaning etc...) are considered. But pictures of piles will never produce a quality quote, and 5 tons is a big pile.
I post this not only to clarify that boardsort does buy this type of material, but more so to stress the importance of presentation and circumstance. There is a level of regret on my part that I was not able to help the seller more when they first reached out to me. After reading the details and seeing more pics on GRF I see that my offer was not the strongest, but I had to operate within the reality that was presented to me at the time.

Steve's offer from NobelMetalsRecovery would be this sellers best bet, in my opinion.

Thanks for this. Also to clarify, yes it's true you did receive pictures from a person who I tried to hire as a consultant. It was a local fellow who I initially approached with trying to help me sort everything on-site to try to get the grades worked out for boardsort (you). However, once he was here then ideas were being thrown around and evolving into elaborate consigning breakdowns with percentage splits and him taking it to his warehouse to further send to a refinery and finding collectors for some and keeping some for himself and involving lawyers potentially and a lot of trust from my end with things happening behind closed doors. I'm not criticizing that approach because it might have after all been a perfectly fine approach. I know there's a lot of stuff and I know it needs to be distilled for accuracy (which I am now attempting to do on my own- with the help for everyone on these forums!). I got nervous when he relayed the information about your offer as a secondary plan which didn't line up with the information I was getting on my own. At the end of the day, he became more of a board buyer trying to buy rather than a consultant and I wasn't ready for that. Basically, I moved on when things became too complicated and I wasn't sure who to trust and what to think. I still respect this local buyer as a person for the record and his rationale. I also respect your low initial offer because you are right, you had almost nothing to go by. I blame myself for that too. I need to do the work to make a case for that, and I will.

I am fine with people coming here with good reason and respectable initial offers. In the meantime, I will keep sorting through and reporting back. If at any time people have enough information to make a best and final offer and schedule a swift pickup, please do! It's my residential address with my family which is the not-so-ideal situ for me to really consider anyone who plans to methodically spend 15 hours in my barn while we eat dinner and sleep. HA

 

[Alondro]

Thanks for this. Also to clarify, yes it's true you did receive pictures from a person who I tried to hire as a consultant. It was a local fellow who I initially approached with trying to help me sort everything on-site to try to get the grades worked out for boardsort (you). However, once he was here then ideas were being thrown around and evolving into elaborate consigning breakdowns with percentage splits and him taking it to his warehouse to further send to a refinery and finding collectors for some and keeping some for himself and involving lawyers potentially and a lot of trust from my end with things happening behind closed doors. I'm not criticizing that approach because it might have after all been a perfectly fine approach. I know there's a lot of stuff and I know it needs to be distilled for accuracy (which I am now attempting to do on my own- with the help for everyone on these forums!). I got nervous when he relayed the information about your offer as a secondary plan which didn't line up with the information I was getting on my own. At the end of the day, he became more of a board buyer trying to buy rather than a consultant and I wasn't ready for that. Basically, I moved on when things became too complicated and I wasn't sure who to trust and what to think. I still respect this local buyer as a person for the record and his rationale. I also respect your low initial offer because you are right, you had almost nothing to go by. I blame myself for that too. I need to do the work to make a case for that, and I will.

I am fine with people coming here with good reason and respectable initial offers. In the meantime, I will keep sorting through and reporting back. If at any time people have enough information to make a best and final offer and schedule a swift pickup, please do! It's my residential address with my family which is the not-so-ideal situ for me to really consider anyone who plans to methodically spend 15 hours in my barn while we eat dinner and sleep. HA

Wow, that's a massive amount of old boards. If I had my garage cleaned out, my kilns built, and the lab set-up completed, I'd pounce on this. Alas, I'm still a year out until I have everything ready for larger-scale processing. I'm only just finishing the protocol optimization experiments.

 

[pwm97128]

Suggestion: If you are in need of funds short term, offer to partner with members of this board. Some located close to you may be willing to invest in exchange for splitting the proceeds.