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rfoster001

Member
Joined
May 29, 2012
Messages
6
I am reading a lot of threads stating "that's too much for this, too much for that" etc. Lets cut to the chase. Thinking of taking the gold. How much is should you pay for:

1lb of Memory sticks
1lb of motherboards
1lb of processors

Thanks
 
In the real world, prices changes with volume and precious metal prices. A quick search on ebay and a few calls to recyclers will get you the price of the week between high low and realistic. Ewaste selling is all about legwork and phone calls.
 
Leaving aside your "hand it to me on a silver platter" attitude, it's too general a question. Asking how much you should pay for a pound of processors is like asking someone how much you should pay for a car with no other details? It's worth a whole lot more if it's a Rolls Royce than if it's a Volkswagen. Also an old but classic muscle car could be worth several times what a brand new Yugo straight off the dealer's lot is worth. It all depends on how much gold, copper, and silver you can recover per chip, the current price of those metals, and your cost per chip to acquire and process the chips.

macfixer01
 
The best answer to his question is - If you hope to profit you should try to pay nothing for your material.

You must assign a value to your time and then decide if it's worth it for you. Many of us do this as a hobby. Some of us try to make a profit. Few of us actually make a living doing it.

If you just want to "turn and burn" the material you get, check out Boardsort.com and try to pay substantially less than they do. Then you can sell your material to them.

It's obvious from your question that you don't want to spend much time researching. Considering that fact you will not succeed in making a profit buying material and processing it yourself.

It takes much research, work and dedication to do what we do. The answer to your question lies in this forum. It's up to you to make the effort to find it.
 
Thanks for the responses. I understand the research and organic fluctuation of the markets. My question, or rather my point is in reading all the forms, people seem to write about how expensive ebay is. That a certain auction of 30lbs of motherboards is an example of why ebay is over priced. No one writes "I'd only pay X for that lot. Research is achieved thru specifics. You guys being the experts, I thought would be more specific in your replies to newbies. Example. People always post a link to an auction asking about what everyone thinks. The main responses are, "Their asking too much, This is an example of why ebay is to expensive, He must be selling to a collector". Unless this a competitive thing, I don't understand why no-one has typed "I wouldn't bid more than X". That's all guys. But if its a research thing and not a lets assist each other out thing that's cool. I'm not voting for Obama either.
 
Some people base value on what they can sell it for. Some process a batch of material and base the value on that. Some people do this more accurately than others. Fewer still assay the material. All in all, there are no exact numbers due to such things as manufacturing and processing differences. Ball park numbers are about the best you can hope for.

I have probably run 10,000 fire assays on electronic scrap. The assays can vary 10-20% on parts that look identical. If I were you, I would learn the refining processes, process some small lots, gather your own data, and compare this with the data from other sources.
 
I wouldn't bid more than $.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 that this guy's time on this forum is short lived! 8)
 
the value of a particular item is subjective to the person who places the value. in other words, one mans trash is another mans treasure. you are asking why there is not more of a specific pricing involved on the forum. well, we try to give specific yields when it can be done, the value of it is up to you.

too, most all members refine in one way or another. we are a friendly group and try not to step on each others toes so as a kind of courtesy when quoting the going price for a particular item, its usually given price as from the markets (boardsort,Ewasted).

if you want to sell material, you can ask in the sell or trade section and take the best offer. but if you want someone to price material for you from Ebay or the scrap yard down the street, well, you may not get what your looking for.
 
I personally would not spend more than 7 dollars a pound for gold finger ram, ( because I know I can resell for a good profit in my area) and that includes the cost of shipping. In person typically I actually offer 25 cents each for ram, MB,cpu, and cards and when the people see they have 100 items they take the 25 dollars happily. I have 5 regular small time suppliers who are happy with this added income. Some bigger suppliers I have offered up to $2.00 a pound. With all your asking you seem to not answer the question; Are you reselling these items or processing for precious metals? I does make a difference in what you will pay. Just my experience.
 
Geo and Joem,
Thank you for you replies, very helpful info. I am processing for precious metals. I'm trying to figure out how many processors, motherboards, ram etc. individually to equal 1 ounce, without over spending to start. Right now I'm trying to calculate how many memory cards 1,000-10,000 or more to = 1 ounce. My buddy is a chemical engineer, and has the equipment and know how. I'm trying to guesstimate up-front cost to purchase scrap.
 
rfoster001 said:
Geo and Joem,
Thank you for you replies, very helpful info. I am processing for precious metals. I'm trying to figure out how many processors, motherboards, ram etc. individually to equal 1 ounce, without over spending to start. Right now I'm trying to calculate how many memory cards 1,000-10,000 or more to = 1 ounce. My buddy is a chemical engineer, and has the equipment and know how. I'm trying to guesstimate up-front cost to purchase scrap.
Click to expand...



You're still posing your question the same way. Whether it's processors, motherboards, or "memory cards", parts made by different manufacturers and even the same manufacturer at different times can vary wildly in gold content. There will never be any hard and fast rule that says 1000 4GB DIMMs will yield an ounce of gold. The best that can be done is to search through the forum here for useful tidbits on what yield others have recovered on average from typical lots of motherboards, memory modules, edge fingers, etc.

The one thing you should take away from all the replies is that you will never get rich or even make much money buying all your gold scrap on Ebay. You need to cultivate local sources and get all your scrap for as cheaply as possible. As one of the worst examples Pentium Pro processors typically sell on Ebay from around $25 apiece on up to whatever some fool will pay. I've seen many auctions for them with a $49.99 starting price for one chip. If you bought a PPro chip for $25 (plus shipping) then put your time and chemicals into it and are careful, you can hope to recover a half Gram of gold which is worth around $25. Not gonna set the world on fire doing business like that are you? But people still buy them because there is false information floating around that they'll yield a full Gram of gold (a myth propagated by some unscrupulous sellers).

macixer01
 
I spent a little time trying to figure out how much to pay for cards on eBay. I took 10.15 pounds of cards, removed the metal brackets and had 7.95 pounds of "cleaner" cards.

I cut off the edge fingers. They weighed 111.5 grams.

I processed a lot of 500 grams of edge fingers and came up with almost exactly 2 grams of gold. My 111.5 grams of edge fingers from +/- 10 pounds of cards was worth roughly $18.00 in gold content.

Trimmed finger cards can be sold to Boardsort for $31.00. The total value of 10 pounds is thus $31.00 + $18.00 = $49.00.

Now you have to figure the cost of acid, peroxide, buckets, air bubbler, bleach, glassware, time, etc.

Those costs vary for each of us, as does the value of our time. The results from my edge fingers will vary from yours due to skill level, technique, age and type of fingers and many other factors I'm not enumerating here.

If you process lots of material the relative cost of these extra items is spread across more revenue making it somewhat more profitable.

You asked about processors. My results show that a fiber Pentium 3 is worth about $0.25, while a 486 is worth $8.33. These numbers are from MY experience and it will vary for those who have better or worse procedures than mine. These numbers are for the gold content only and don't take in to account any expenses or time involved in getting the gold out of them.

It took me roughly 8 minutes to put this all in a post for you. How much time are YOU willing to spend reading the countless hours of posting that is available here for you?

If you are willing to put in the work you can learn what I have learned in my two plus years of reading almost EVERY post on this forum.
 
Everybody with a serious interest in refining should read every post on this forum.
It may take quite a while since the forum has grown so large.
It will only make you smarter. OK it may make your eyes hurt, but take some breaks.

Jim
 
gold4mike said:
I spent a little time trying to figure out how much to pay for cards on eBay. I took 10.15 pounds of cards, removed the metal brackets and had 7.95 pounds of "cleaner" cards.

I cut off the edge fingers. They weighed 111.5 grams.

I processed a lot of 500 grams of edge fingers and came up with almost exactly 2 grams of gold. My 111.5 grams of edge fingers from +/- 10 pounds of cards was worth roughly $18.00 in gold content.

Trimmed finger cards can be sold to Boardsort for $31.00. The total value of 10 pounds is thus $31.00 + $18.00 = $49.00.

Now you have to figure the cost of acid, peroxide, buckets, air bubbler, bleach, glassware, time, etc.

Those costs vary for each of us, as does the value of our time. The results from my edge fingers will vary from yours due to skill level, technique, age and type of fingers and many other factors I'm not enumerating here.

If you process lots of material the relative cost of these extra items is spread across more revenue making it somewhat more profitable.

You asked about processors. My results show that a fiber Pentium 3 is worth about $0.25, while a 486 is worth $8.33. These numbers are from MY experience and it will vary for those who have better or worse procedures than mine. These numbers are for the gold content only and don't take in to account any expenses or time involved in getting the gold out of them.

It took me roughly 8 minutes to put this all in a post for you. How much time are YOU willing to spend reading the countless hours of posting that is available here for you?

If you are willing to put in the work you can learn what I have learned in my two plus years of reading almost EVERY post on this forum.
Click to expand...
Just wanted to toss in there that these prices can/will vary from the price of gold, which is, as of this posting $1564.80/troy ounce

The ever-changing price of gold (from minute to minute, much less from day to day!) makes it very difficult to EVER put a "price" on anything to do with what you will get from reclaiming/recovering/refining.

You have been given a lot of solid advice from many who give of their time and knowledge freely. You should appreciate that fact and heed the message - "there is no magic formula other than doing the research yourself which will teach you how the variables work".

I blame the school system for the constant barrage of such "give me exact numbers - why are you hiding the facts" type questions, and much of the entitlement attitude that seems to be rampant today. After all, when someone has been told everything to believe for the first 18 years of their life, given answers over and over and told that there is only ONE right answer to any question, just how can they be expected to understand the TRUTH of adult life, which contains multitudes of floating variables and no possible answer other than that of experience and educated guesses (neither which is tangible in any way!)? (end of short soap-box rant...)
 
I had ZERO knowledge of any values in scrap computer parts before I came here. It took me over two years to get close 15% proficient in what can be done with that scrap and I learn a new thing every minute I am part of this growing industry. You can't do it all or learn it all but if you keep reading you might get really good in some areas and make some money without killing anyone. Once in a while you will need a smack in the back of your head to reboot your brain. My thoughts.
Also as an added note; Yes you will loose money in your first few runs. You will be over excited and pay more, buy more, and waste more than you need to. It's all part of learning, think of it as tuition to GRF university.
 

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