Quote Originally Posted by rbrooks715 View Post
well, the problem with a dore bar is getting an accurate assay from it. just for some numbers. lets say you took in 10,000 lbs of circuit boards. and the processor recovers a 1000 lb copper dore bar. and there is a whole 30 oz of gold in it. that small amount of gold will not be spread evenly. depending on when and where the sample is taken can make a huge difference in the assay you are going to paid on.

a refiner separates the metals until they have all of the gold back to a pure state. well, hopefully they know what they are doing and manage that.

what all of that means is a refiner is far more accurate and will be more likely to recover more of the pm'sthan a processor.

personally i would prefer a refiner. an honest accurate refiner. there are a few who do use the big refiners to process their material. none of them are going to be willing to discuss returns.

it is a bit difficult to imagine cascade or any processor/refiner being able to tell you how much your return should be for electronic items. there is no way they could no just how heavy or light pins had been plated. you can have an estimate, but that could be off quite a bit. too many variables.
Hi - You're right. They can only estimate before the fact. In my case I would take in scrap, they would refine, tell me how much gold they recovered and how much they would pay me for it. It was quite simple to then determine what percent of the spot price of gold they were returning to me in cash. If I went to a place that paid based on an estimate then it's a different story but that's not what I was asking. Actually, thinking through all these posts and all I realize I could do it myself. All I have to do is take the actual gold content in a given CPU, determine the number of CPUs in a pound, look at what a buyer is offering to pay per pound and compare that to the actual gold value per pound. I know that gold content varies, but at least I could see if I was getting AROUND 20% or 50% or??? Just curious and trying to figure it out. I'm really sorry I bothered you all with such a simple question. It sure did create a lot of anger, angst, suspicion and really unfriendly vibes. Later and thanks.