Question on decanned converters

I had a guy call tonight stating he had some motherboards, fingercards and peripherals that he would like to sell to me. He also stated that he had a few catalyst converters that he had decanned himself for sale as well. I do not have any experience in dealing with converters and am a little skeptical about buying something that was decanned. I imagine it would be difficult to tell what kind of vehicle they came from without stamps. Any suggestions out there about what I should be looking for? Thanks guys and gals!

it has been a while since I delt with converters0but I know that a couple of years ago they were paying just $12# for honey comb and dust because like you said they couldn't tell what it came from until after process.
while they would pay 150 for a whole jeep or chysler cat.

there are a couple of cat buyers here that should be able to help you

If you purchased decanned cats, you will have no clue what the yield will be until you ball mill and assay. Otherwise it's a crap shoot.

Some people decan because whoever they dealt with in the past trusted them, and was alright with the yield, etc. If that is the case, if they used to sell to someone else but no longer do, then ask to speak with that person so you can ask questions like "Did they deal with you honestly" or "who was buying your catalytic material" and "why are you not doing it anymore". Answers to questions like these can help you decide if you should be purchasing cats in your particular market.

I know where I live, competition is so tight that you are lucky to find any cats in any quantity. They are all being accumulated and sent out of state to be processed.

Sometimes the person selling the cats sells them decanned because they know you are not going to be able to judge how much PGMs there are, approx. They may be hoping that you overpay because of the work involved in decanning.

Ask the question "how long have you been scrapping cats" if they have for any length of time, they already know better than to decan. Then you ask the question "you know already you get less for decanned cats, why did you decan them?". I think you get the picture.

If he's new, he probably didn't have a clue.

I thought this would probably be a good thread to post this information, this is yield data on different types of cats, with the pictures and what type of vehicle they come from.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56505223/Re...Converters.pdf

Good luck

Scott

Thanks Olddude and Scott. I think Ill pass on them for now.

More than likely aftermarket or low grade material. Especially if it was decanned intentionally. Most reputable/large buyers have stopped buying loose material from the public for this reason.

i agree sometimes they are aftermarkets, sometimes they are clogged and the muffler or mechanic shops knock them out and reweld the empty cat on(which is illegal but they do it), my yard pays $8 a lb this way, i never emtpy mine but sometimes i come across loose honeycomb in my travels

Noble is dead on. Wouldn't touch them. On another note last year, and no insult to gypsies, a group of gyps out of Minnesota area were selling fake cats bought from...suprise China. The were made to look identical as OEM cats. The easiest way to identify these......no weld markings where they should have been hung from the vehicle. These are still floating around and are all over the country. I think people who got took are just trying to pass the buck and passing them forward.

I decan all mine and have no problem reselling it, especially with platinum as high as it is and headed higher. I have 700 pounds of honeycomb and 100 pounds of foil i have extracted. Its best if you can extract the bricks intact, buyers like the look of intact bricks better than crushed chunks. Sometimes i decan them and sometimes i just rod them out, it really just depends on how i am feeling about it that day. If you dont want to decan i would recommend cutting them so that you have steel sticking 1/2" away from the edge of the bricks, that way it costs less to ship and is still recognizable as a cat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jghilino

I decan all mine and have no problem reselling it, especially with platinum as high as it is and headed higher. I have 700 pounds of honeycomb and 100 pounds of foil i have extracted. Its best if you can extract the bricks intact, buyers like the look of intact bricks better than crushed chunks. Sometimes i decan them and sometimes i just rod them out, it really just depends on how i am feeling about it that day. If you dont want to decan i would recommend cutting them so that you have steel sticking 1/2" away from the edge of the bricks, that way it costs less to ship and is still recognizable as a cat.

---

does you buyer give you a set price on the material, or does it get tested?

I have spoken with a few folks on here who have decanned, and from all accounts, it appears you have FAR better rates of return on turning in whole cats to core buyers. Example, I turned in a "Saturn" Cat today- Payout $100, if I broke out all the honeycomb- say 5 lbs of brick in it- At top end: $12 a lb, if you can even get someone to buy it (none of the core buyers in my area buy crumbled comb or bricks) So At BEST you get $60, while I made $40 more just by cutting the whole cat off and driving it in for 15 minutes or less of work.
Just my .02

The other thing you can do, so the buyer knows exactly what they are getting is to decan your cats, mill them then pull a correct representative sample to be assayed. You will know the exact value of your material dependent upon how homogenous your mix is. Then there is no playing around, you will get more for your cats than you otherwise would.

Scott

We have been buying cats for 10 years now. For the entirety of this time we sent out our converters whole in cans and all the after market was decanned and shipped. We always got between $18-$25lb for the aft mkt. material and we had to have 2000 lb to ship. Now we are getting prices like
$2-$5lb??? or maybe no money at all. The buyer was probably mixing it with good material and making a good profit until everyone started doing it.....