Received a very good price for some e-scrap.

[netseeker]

I have been looking for a reliable e-scrap refiner that wasn't too far away and I think ECS located near Dallas has what I need in a local refiner. I talked to a purchasing agent who emailed a quote for refining e-scrap and a quote for purchasing e-scrap. Their quote for buying e-scrap was much better than any of the local recyclers were paying so I decided to sell them some circuit boards that I had ready. I had the boards separated and boxed by type(motherboards, hard drive boards, CD/DVD-ROM boards and floppy drive boards) since I felt there might be a price differential but it apparently did not matter since I received the same price - $2.45/lb for all of them. They actually put everything into a single Gaylord box - almost overflowed - after weighing each box and taking pictures of each type of board.

What was very nice is they cut a check for the total amount while I waited! 8) They are definitely a professional operation with a huge PM refinery located on site and I will use them again in the future for selling e-scrap and hopefully some refining too. I'm going to ask for a tour of the refinery when I have the time. It should be very interesting.

Robert

 

[Oz]

If you made a significant premium or percentage over your costs is all that matters.

Playing devils advocate though, do you think that the different types of boards you segregated are all the same value on a pound for pound basis?

If not, do a bit of reading here to decide if you may be better served by finding someone that is more discriminating.

 

[silversaddle1]

$2.40 a pound is what my local E-scrap buyer will pay for my boards. Everything goes into one box. Backplanes, motherboards, slot cards, hard drive boards, etc. No power supply boards, or low grade. He like me to bring in 4 gaylord boxes at a time to get the top money, but has called me in the past wanting what ever I may have at the time. He knows we do mainly large, mainframe type equipment, high grade stuff. that might have something to do with the high price as well. $2.45 is good money for PCB's. Hell, that's $4900.00 per ton!

 

[EDI Refining]

I dont think they refine
they just prep and assay

$2.45 is fair price though

 

[netseeker]

Good question Oz, I have to wonder about the differences in the boards for PMs too but to find out for sure I need to acquire enough of each and then refine each quantity and see what comes out.

In particular I wonder about the floppy drive boards. There's not much on a floppy PCB besides 2 or 3 ICs and the ribbon cable connection which is gold plated. It's possible that a pound of these boards contains more gold than a pound of most boards due to the fact that it takes so many PCBs to MAKE a pound - there's a lot of gold pins in that pound of scrap.

Perhaps GSP, lazersteve, Lou or one of the the other pros or more experienced people on the forum have the answer. I'm going test this idea out myself when I get enough floppy drive PCBs but that may take a while so if anyone knows what the PM content of these boards I'd love to find out.

 

[patnor1011]

I just talked to my friend in europe he is getting 3,400 euro per ton. /5110$ www.xe.com/

 

[glorycloud]

Sounds like $2.56 per pound

 

[netseeker]

I don't think I've talked to anyone locally that pays that much but I suppose demand would jack up the price or lower it in different locations. With the price of gold continuing to go up e-scrap can only continue to go up too. A good direction for all e-scrappers on the forum. I'm curious about the true value of a pound of circuit boards if the buyers are paying this much. $4.00 a pound - or more?

 

[patnor1011]

minimum of double of what they pay...