Massive amount of silver in conn 721

[Yggdrasil]

Can you please make paragraphs and indents in your text.
It is really hard to read something like that.

 

[Golddigger76]

Sure do, I took several pictures of everything as I was removing all of the components. Today I got on a job that took way more work than expected and couldn't get the pictures posted but here's the bus wires in those plastic sleeves. I had already removed the outside wire and sleeve. Second picture is a closeup of the needle contacts that are on the key and plated in the end where they contact the 4 bus wires.

 

[Golddigger76]

Here's a few pictures what is inside of the Conn 619, it was built in November 1976.

 

[Rob666]

Here's a few pictures what is inside of the Conn 619, it was built in November 1976.

Nice pictures!!!

 

[Golddigger76]

Did the Conn organ that you tore down have similar components inside of it ?

 

[Rob666]

Hope this is a good place to post a bit of component identification. Some capacitors without precious metals have resell value. Some axial mount resistors have gold plated end caps. The orange capsitor arrays may have silver and palladium plated to the ceramic substrate. The T0-92 transistors usually have two gold bond wires, potential for precious metal plated substrate and microchip die braze.

Hey what kind of precious metals are in the brown component thats rectangular because I probably have at least a kilogram of them

 

[Rob666]

I just started tearing down a Conn Tampico Model 619 that looks almost identical to the pictures of the bus bars you posted and there does appear to be some nice silver wires in those long white plastic contact rods, I still need to test to confirm that. Also on mine all of the little needle contacts that have gold plated tips that contact the silver (looking) wire appear to be coated with a black silver oxide coating from the gold plating down to the plastic frame that holds them in place so those might add to the recovered weight. This organ has a huge amount of Switchcraft toggle switches that have several little rectangular palladium contacts, generally on those if the contacts are not round and black colored they will test positive for palladium, the rest are silver contacts. There is tons of large and small IC chips several of the bigger chips with gold plated legs, lots of nice tantalum capacitors. I will try to get some good pictures as I tear it down and maybe some actual recovery amounts from the higher grade component's.
I honestly don't see 25 ounce of silver yet since the wires from the long plastic contact sleeves only weighed 2.068 ounces total. My opinion now is yes that is easy silver if that's silver wires but the Switchcraft toggles are most likely going to hold more value in their palladium contacts but I have not found any way to quickly remove the tiny rectangle contacts without taking the toggle switches apart.

You should really check to see if those are the 50/50 silver palladium mix i speak of because the weight seems right

 

[Christian333]

Hey what kind of precious metals are in the brown component thats rectangular because I probably have at least a kilogram of them

Potential for silver and palladium.

 

[Rob666]

I have a lot of them. Just been saving them kind of curious about these black ceramic disk capacitors

 

[Golddigger76]

The brown ones are what everyone calls a dog bone, they are a type of silver/mica capacitor. I have several of these that I have removed from some early 1980's computers but have not processed any yet.
I'm pretty sure that the buss wires are not just silver because I had a small piece in nitric all day yesterday and it started out desolving fine but when I got home last night there was still some wire in there so who knows ?
The little needle contacts most likely are silver with a gold plating on the end , will address that soon as I can.
I will also check the card contacts, pins and sockets, some of the capacitors, and the reed relays to see if they have any precious metals in them.
There's a few crystal oscillators that have gold plating plus the plated I/C chips, EPROM's and some silver tantalum capacitors.

 

[Golddigger76]

This is the wires that I removed from the plastic buss sleeves. It has zero oxides on it unlike the needle contacts that are coated with black silver oxide, the wires look like they are factory fresh which is maybe a good sign for being 45 years old .

 

[Christian333]

I have a lot of them. Just been saving them kind of curious about these black ceramic disk capacitors

Single layer ceramic disk components are usually capacitors, they may also be varistors or PTC fuse. All have the same construction just different ceramic dielectric composition. There is potential for precious metal plated to both sides as the electrodes, silver most common.

 

[Mike18436572]

I do not think the silver rods that are in the white plastic sleeve are silver. At least not 50% or better. I did the scratch test and went away. I dissolve some in nitric and distilled water and tried cementing out with copper and nothing. The tiny wire that’s brazed to it is heavy gold plated around 10-12k but won’t amount to anything. Maybe .1 gram after dissolving all the “silver” rods which wouldn’t be worth it. Although they are “silverish”, I just don’t think it’s a high enough percentage to amount to anything. The next time I go in to sell Pd I’ll have them scan it. I opened up a 552 and it had 15 of those rods that weighed 28.5 grams a rod. But that’s with the small gold plated contact rod still attached. The gold plating in tube form is probably what was left in the beaker Golddigger76. That’s what was left in my beaker after dissolving them. I truly hope I’m wrong but I’m not convinced yet that the rods are 97% silver.

 

[Mike18436572]

I weighed and calculated the rods specific gravity. It came out to 8.86. Copper is 8.96. Pure silver is 10.49. Even junk silver is around 10. So now I’m certain that although there may be trace silver in the rods, they definitely aren’t 97%. Not even 20%

 

[Yggdrasil]

Within all product categories a single question may answer if there is PMs or not in a specific place.

Is there any upside to using Gold/Silver/Palladium on/in this particular item?

If yes it may or may not be there depending on the upside comparing to cost.
Sometimes they overcome cost by plating.

If something is covered by plastic/varnish or other coating less likely.

Testing is your friend.

 

[Golddigger76]

Of course I am hopeful there is some palladium or even silver but if not then it is perfectly fine. There's a lot of other pieces that are going to have enough value to either resale or refine . Mostly I wanted everyone to know that this is not a model from Conn that has 25 ounces of silver, way less lol. The wire I have in nitric is the bigger wire in the sleeve. Still has not dissolved all the way at room temperature.
My farming is getting in the way of my fun life right now bit should slow down enough soon to give me a bit more time to make the time to get some testing done to see what, if anything is worth the effort. I still say that there's plenty in this one for someone to learn on so if you have help to move and load a 300 lb machine, especially if it is free or almost free. Don't go buy every old organ you can find thinking your going to be making unheard-of amazing profits. Some of these actually do have a decent amount of palladium but I think that most don't at all.
Some of the ones that do are already talked about on this forum.

 

[Mike18436572]

Within all product categories a single question may answer if there is PMs or not in a specific place.

Is there any upside to using Gold/Silver/Palladium on/in this particular item?

If yes it may or may not be there depending on the upside comparing to cost.
Sometimes they overcome cost by plating.

If something is covered by plastic/varnish or other coating less likely.

Testing is your friend.

I totally agree. There would be no reason to make a .125” bar 25” long out of solid silver. Silver was only $1.50 an ounce back then but that would have been $40 for the raw material to make those bars. So the processed cost would have been much more. I’m leaning towards nickel. They are silverish on the inside so they aren’t silver plated copper. Nickel specific gravity is 8.91. Real close to the 8.86 I got.

 

[Mike18436572]

see where it says ag 97.62. That is the purity of the silver

If something is plated heavy enough the xrf gun can be tricked into thinking it’s solid. I had some heavy 10k plated bars one time that I knew were plated because I put them in nitric and it ate out the inside copper but left the heavy plating in tube form. I took those to my buyer and when he shot them in his xrf they showed 10k solid. Now if it was melted it wouldn’t have shown 10k gold. It would have shown like 1% gold and 99% copper.

 

[Rob666]

I weighed and calculated the rods specific gravity. It came out to 8.86. Copper is 8.96. Pure silver is 10.49. Even junk silver is around 10. So now I’m certain that although there may be trace silver in the rods, they definitely aren’t 97%. Not even 20

 

[Yggdrasil]

well just because you say it doesn't make it right either. I have made $750 in the last week from these bars and I have no reason to lie. I was more surprised than anyone at the find and I hardly doubt that the coin and jewelry place I go to would buy them from me repeatedly. If they made a mistake it would of been found at the refinery but I have sold to them for years and they never once let me know that what they bought wasn't what they thought so you can try to say all the negative shit you want about it but I suggest maybe really figuring out the truth before running your mouth as if you are the sole expert on it because I will tend to believe the $35,000 machine that analyzes it and not your opinion on the matter not trying to be an ass but I have no reason to come on here and lie and im not some rookie either I have a lot of years experience with recycling and reclaiming precious metals. You basically are saying that there is no way what I said is true because you say so

Please again break up your text, it is tiresome to read these long text without paragraphs.
And keep a civil language please.