You're all chasing the Holy Grail here. How much precious metal is in a catalytic converter is completely irrelevant if you don't have the ability to: 1.) extract that metal efficiently and profitably, and 2.) get paid top dollar for it (platinum, palladium, & rhodium).
If you believe that knowing what is in these things is going to make the least difference in negotiating a price for them, you are deluding yourself. Buyers, whether they are refiners, consolidators, or collectors, will pay whatever they decide gives them an adequate return for their efforts and investment in your converters or catalyst - take it or leave it.
Want to get top dollar for them? Become the people you are selling to - invest hundreds of thousands in vehicles, equipment, and personnel (and have millions in liquid capital to invest in the converters as well, obviously)to travel around the country and accumulate enough scrap converters to get top dollar from the final refiner or buyer. Oh yeah, let's not forget about the sleepless nights worrying about the return on your investment, which is not going to get repaid for a period of months, most likely.
Really, if you want to know how much metal in a converter, get 10 samples of each converter, open them, keeping the catalyst from each type separate, and get them assayed. Assuming you can find someone who you'd trust to do these assays (it ain't the same a assying a piece of alloy), it shouldn't cost you more than hundred thousand or so - there's been a LOT of different converters manufactured in the 30 years since I started recycling them.
Also, while you're trying to do this, tell me how you determined that your converters being assayed are all from the same year, make, and model (that's the ONLY way you'll get accurate assay results, as the same cat from different model years might vary widely in metal content). IF you can do this, then you might believe in the per-converter pricing model.
Frankly, very few converters have any distinguishing markings which would enable you to do this, and many look the same today as they did 20 years ago. There's simply no reliable way to tell without serial numbers for every scrap cat, to tell what's in them.
Don't expect to get $50 for a 25 year-old Ford converter and $125 for the same cat which is off a 2003 Ford when you sell - the higher price may be realistic for the newer ones, but you just cannot tell the difference in them without some type of reference stamped into the converter shell.
So much for per-converter pricing.
If you want to make a comfortable living recycling cats, take my advice, based on 30 years' experience, stop worrying about how much profit the next guy in the supply chain is making, and concentrate on beating your competition by providing superior customer service to your accounts. Learn how and where to accumulate your inventory at bargain prices, and work at it consistently. Keep your overhead low, and turn your inventory as quickly as possible, always put your profits into growing your business.
Best os success in your efforts - Scott Andrews recyclebiz.com
