Different colored finger boards

Originally Posted by Mudlucky

Hi Folks,



I have searched, but apparently didn't use the right keywords. Please forgive me if this has been asked 1000 times....

I have about 10 pound of different colored (red, blue, yellow, black) gold finger boards. Are these classified (generally) differently than the green gold finger boards?

Thanks for you help!!

Ken

It depends on the buyer. A savvy buyer and perhaps a savvy refiner, will know what they are looking at and if large enough quantities might harass you a bit on them.

Most people are not going to look at your material and offer to pay you more for the ones they realize have more value, and specially not if they don't know. So it's up to you to sort your material, and set the prices you expect. If you are removing the gold fingers from the cards or boards they are connected to, and you are collecting large enough quantities, you can sort them and sell them for example on ebay, while also educating the buyers, and make more from each transaction than you normally would.

For example, red boards are generally Chinese, and use the most recent plating technology because as they were building their factories, they installed the newest technology. So they have the least amount of gold plating. Generally speaking, that's not to say that red PC boards don't originate from other areas of the world, but that for the most part they originate from China, and in most instances this is the case.

Your black boards were generally speaking used for special applications, such as proprietary computer systems or high end systems where they needed to clearing see the components on the board to see if anything spoiled, broke, leaked, etc. The black background enables the tech to quickly scan the board to discover these defects quickly. So they tend to have heavier gold plate and higher quality components than other colored boards, you should get a lot more for these types of finger boards.

Yellow, white, brown, transluscent fingerboards are old, and tend to have heavier gold plating. However, these are also the boards that contain PCBs and need to be handled differently because of all the especially toxic chemicals trapped in the boards themselves. Knowing this can help you lengthen your life expectancy if you are thinking about cutting these boards instead of breaking them. Google PCBs and you will understand what I mean.

Besides what I have stated, there are many other boards I have not. Sometimes it takes asking the end buyer or seller before you can properly understand the value of any given material. But that's after all what you are doing here. Good question by the way, I like seeing questions like this, it not only shows the OP is thinking about how to gain the most value out of their material, but it allows everyone to post and share information.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

Yellow, white, brown, transluscent fingerboards are old, and tend to have heavier gold plating. However, these are also the boards that contain PCBs and need to be handled differently because of all the especially toxic chemicals trapped in the boards themselves. Knowing this can help you lengthen your life expectancy if you are thinking about cutting these boards instead of breaking them. Google PCBs and you will understand what I mean.

Scott

So you mean to say that these older boards can be dangerous if broken or cut? It seems kind of hard to believe that cutting into a board like that will result in noticeably more exposure to PCBs than just handling it. But I trust your wisdom, and you know much more about that kind of thing than I do. I'm definitely going to start watching how I handle them from now on.