Gold in Electronics

Question for those of you who are what I like to call "extreme scrappers."

What electronics contain gold and other valuable metals?

Which electronics are worth the time to take apart?

Can you give us an example of a common item that contains gold, the gold weight and the value?

izismile.com/2010/08/27/theres_gold_in_them_thar_computers_18_pics.html

izismile.com/2010/08/27/theres_gold_in_them_thar_computers_18_pics.html

So, all you need to do is spend countless hours picking thousands of tiny parts off of motherboards, have a degree in Chemistry and be willing to risk electrocution and exposure to poisonous gases to recover a piece of gold the size of a BB?

I'm in!   

Who knew used computers would the secret to Alchemy.   

Any electronics I can't sell, I'm piling up to eventually scrap.  I don't bother hunting for gold in them though.  Stuff like cpu chips and memory can be sold at a higher rate, but pretty much all your circuit boards can be sold by the pound.  Just have to find the right scrap yard.

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Any electronics I can't sell, I'm piling up to eventually scrap.  I don't bother hunting for gold in them though.  Stuff like cpu chips and memory can be sold at a higher rate, but pretty much all your circuit boards can be sold by the pound.  Just have to find the right scrap yard.

Member craiglstauction did a lot of this..he hasn't posted for about 3 months, but look him up in the member's list and drop him a private mail. I think I spelled it right but maybe not.

According to people on scrapmetalforums.com a lot of places only pay around 25-50 cents/lb.
But there are places that pay $2.50-$4.00/lb for the right stuff, mother boards, fingers, certain cell phones.
Looks like its better to seperated out: motherboards in one box, high grade in another, low grade....
Kinda like you wouldn't recycle clean aluminum in same bag as cans or sheets of copper mixed with copper wire.


avc-recycle.blogspot.com/2010/03/maximizing-profits-from-recycling.html

I don't come across enough or have storage space so I'll stick to dropping off whole electronics at donation site.   Plus with breaking it down you still need to get rid of case.



There is a place in Dallas you can call for buy priceing:
dallascomputerrecycling.net/services/

Last time I checked, the local scrap yard was giving $8 per computer tower. If you have a pickup you could easily haul $250 in computer scrap to the scrap yard..

Last time I checked, the local scrap yard was giving $8 per computer tower. If you have a pickup you could easily haul $250 in computer scrap to the scrap yard..

$8 per tower? Really? I came across 12 servers from the 1990's that someone was throwing away. I knew I should have picked them up.

I just called the scrap yard again, apparently that was some kind of special they were running about a year ago. Now they're scrap value is .20/pound. How heavy is a computer tower? 15 pounds, 20?

$8 per tower? Really? I came across 12 servers from the 1990's that someone was throwing away. I knew I should have picked them up.

I read in the scrap forum that pre-1994 electronic parts get a premium price do do the technology back then they needed to use more gold.
...........

Pretty much from what I've read HomeGrown is right.  20-ish cents per pound.   But that's with components out of tower and mixed.    Seperated you can get more.

But I haven't done it.  Just reading forums and different areas have different pried and requirements.

All, to me, sound like a lot of work for little pay if you don't have a lot of equipment to recycle.

I'll have a truckload by the time I eventually get to sorting the electronics boards and recycling them.  For now they get pulled and piled in totes, stacked at the back of the shed.  I take the cases off as steel scrap and recycle it separately.  Must just be the kind of units I buy, but I end up with a truckload of steel quite often.

you make some good points travis. unless someone is going through a ton of small appliances, tv's computer monitors, etc it probably wont amount to much. also you have to know what your doing as old tv's for example release poisonous gas when the tubes are broken. i can see some idiot busting a bunch open in an enclosed garage or something like that.

If any of you are in to or find any industrial electrical  contactors
(motor starters) the contacts in them are platinum

old radio transmitter stuff has gold

The most common electronics with gold will be your computers and cell phones.  Some printers that have memory boards have a little gold. 

If you are interested I can point you to some good buyers and a site.

I've made a little over $1k from scrap electronics.  When gold was at it's highest I could buy a complete desktop for $5 and make $20-$30 from it.

Things that I scrap:
computer parts
cell phones
xbox/playstation/etc consules - mid or high-grade boards
DVRs - for the hard drives

Most of the VCR, DVD, etc. players are all low grade.  Not worth pulling unless has some eproms.