Junkyard Find

[oldgoldman]

As we are all hyper sensitive to finding Au on every corner, I wanted to remind all of a lesson I learned this week. I was finishing sorting the bottom of a 20+ year old pile of electronics scrap and on the bottom of the rusted metal tot are all sorts of broken components, rust, raccoon and bird crap. I bought a french fry pan that dips into the oil to cook fries to sort and shake the junk away, and then these connectors appeared. Little polish and poof. Haste Makes Waste.

 

[oldgoldman]

Here are some of the DYNATECH Pins for your review. There is clearly some black tarnishing on some of them. Not sure what that means. These are from the inside of the modules above. Enjoy

 

[stihl88]

When looking at Silver, if it is black it is usually from 999 Silver so you have to ask yourself would they have made these from solid 999 or plated 999.
Solid components of Silver of greater size are usually alloyed 925 with other metals and usually show signs of a brownish oxidized layer rather than a black layer when from 999.

 

[Acid_Bath76]

My buddy cleans renovates homes taken back by the bank, and always brings me the stuff he finds. Anyhow, this seems to be an film projector. Found some neat stuff inside. It practically fell apart the moment my screwdriver hit it! Made in West Germany around 1955-ish

 

[Harold_V]

Here are some of the DYNATECH Pins for your review. There is clearly some black tarnishing on some of them. Not sure what that means. These are from the inside of the modules above. Enjoy

I'll tell you what it means to me. It means you don't know how to test.

Do you?

It's perfectly acceptable to post on this subject, but, to the man, not one of you should be in the position where you don't know what you're seeing, causing you to post questions. A simple test with nitric and Schwerter's solution would answer pretty much any question you might have.

Now then, if you don't know how to test, I strongly advise you get to learning, and right now. Hoke discusses testing in ways that anyone can understand the process.

Harold

 

[Oz]

I do not run much in the way of electronic scrap unless it is prepped for me, and in bulk. So I may be less tolerant than some of the repeated pictures of electronics accompanied by the questions “what precious metals does it contain”, “is it worth processing”.

Would it not be of amazing benefit to see people instead read what is written here as to testing for values? Then to post pictures of scrap items they have found, stating what equipment the item in question came out of, and what they had originally speculated they contained as to values.

Only then proceed with the results they had when they tested the part, and how they tested it.

 

[johnny309]

I tested a lot of fingers and pins from industrial electronic boards (between 1975 to 1986) and the results are very different....I'm speaking in procentage about 30-40% on the same board,different year of manufactuer,enviroment in which they function.
So.....do not make assumptions on another people procentage of gold in the same material,because could be different and in this is a questions of skills involved to the final gold and purity.
Best way to start is to incinerate your starting material and after wash with a solution of NaOH and tap water to get rid of the contaminates.This along will sometimes reduce your starting material weight with 0,2 up to 2%.....
The only thing that people wants to know is..."how much GOLD is there"....and sincerely :could be less then you expect ,so take small steps and first acumulate enought material to make it worthwhile and study....study.....study.....

 

[oldgoldman]

Harold V and all. Thank you for the advice. As I noted earlier in the thread, I am NOT a refiner .. I'm an investor. I have a warehouse full of old gold and I have a network of refiners who melt or strip my gold. I usually only pose questions as I enjoy .. as do others, the outstanding collective knowledge of the forum that comes out in post answers. I am reading on the chemical processes ( don't want the waste ) and on testing ( do want early information ). This thread was to celebrate and share what I consider to be some unique Au containing materials, not your run of the mill RAM, CPUs, Boards etc.

 

[Harold_V]

Harold V and all. Thank you for the advice. As I noted earlier in the thread, I am NOT a refiner .. I'm an investor. I have a warehouse full of old gold and I have a network of refiners who melt or strip my gold. I usually only pose questions as I enjoy .. as do others, the outstanding collective knowledge of the forum that comes out in post answers. I am reading on the chemical processes ( don't want the waste ) and on testing ( do want early information ). This thread was to celebrate and share what I consider to be some unique Au containing materials, not your run of the mill RAM, CPUs, Boards etc.

I can appreciate your position, but you would benefit greatly by following the advice I dispensed. You could then share what you'd learned along with the fact that you have the materials at your disposal.

Testing is quite easy and serves a real purpose, regardless of your position in the refining chain. To be better informed is to help you know what has value and is worthy of your time. Best of all, you rarely generate anything in the way of hazardous materials in testing. What little that is generated is generally dealt with by washing to a drain (a single drop of solution) or even by being blotted with a paper towel.

I can't speak for others, but the first day I spent in my "lab" when I was starting out was of about twelve hours in duration. I was held spellbound, and shocked at the quick passage of time. I had Hoke's book in hand and concentrated on her testing procedures. The knowledge I gained served me well for the balance of my refining career, and enabled me to make informed decisions, which, otherwise, would not have been the case.

Check it out!

Harold

 

[oldgoldman]

Oldgoldman will heed your advice. Last thing I want to do is make a mistake on certain material that I can't correct and discover 3 years later.

Need Ag and Au test kits.

Will read Hoke.

 

[darshevo]

As good luck will have it testing is the easiest part to learn (or has been for me) with the guidance I've gotten through some of the questions I have asked I rarely find myself in a position now where I can't get the answer at the bench

Keep posting the great pics of the old stuff. Always fun to see what other people get to play with

-Lance

 

[oldgoldman]

Great. I read on the forum for 2 hours last night .. the CPU yield .XLS, handbook, various gram / lb yield posts .. etc.

Will hit the surface calculation today.

All I really need at this point is a simple way to test the plating thickness and yields on PINS / CONNECTORS. I'll keep searching.

Recent find on a DEC Flip piece. Just liked the green lettering

 

[pinwheel]

"Me = Drooling" especially on the 1st pic. I wish I had more time.

 

[oldgoldman]

In my obsession to better understand the yield equations, i'm breaking up some 1975 vintage pin connectors to see exactly how many grams of pins per unit.

the weight mix of several crushed connectors is below

i have since cleaned the pins more than in the picture below

68 grams pins .. 33%
135 grams green material .. 67%

203 grams total

68 grams pins = .15 lbs

.15 lbs @ $/lb = $$ Pile value

if my logic is correct, it looks like connector crushing is a good business..

 

[oldgoldman]

MUPAC Pin Board .. I was stunned when I dug this out today. I've seen a lot of Pin boards lately, but this is beyond.

 

[mgdman36]

Thought i would show a little of my junk yard find 2000 pounds!

 

[rusty]

As we are all hyper sensitive to finding Au on every corner, I wanted to remind all of a lesson I learned this week. I was finishing sorting the bottom of a 20+ year old pile of electronics scrap and on the bottom of the rusted metal tot are all sorts of broken components, rust, raccoon and bird crap. I bought a french fry pan that dips into the oil to cook fries to sort and shake the junk away, and then these connectors appeared. Little polish and poof. Haste Makes Waste.

Those look exactly like the contacts I pull from washing machine and dryer timers, also look for contacts inside the rheostats from hot water tanks and the electric range.

The oven control has very large contacts inside. It's amazing what you can do wit ha claw hammer.

Regards
Rusty

 

[joem]

Rusty
You and Hannibal Smith are tops on my list of people who find cool stuff

 

[oldgoldman]

mgdman36 .. it is not nice to make oldgoldman jealous .. nice find !!

rusty .. thanks for the info .. i have 4 gaylords of those assemblies waiting for ball milling or manual teardown when it's slow .. let's touch base on them in a couple of months.

of all the special items .. this VEGA servo control board ( 1979 ) below is one of the only ones to earn a spot in my office .. it's simplicity and lines are spectacular in my opinion. the matching extender card is smoking hot too..

 

[rewalston]

I was out at the local scrap yard and saw these two boards they are identical so I have pictured only one of them. Any ideas as to what they are? I picked these up because it's obvious that some of the plugs are gold plated but I'm not too certain about the rest of the items on the boards. Any ideas?

Rusty