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I know what a standard pci type finger card looks like. I have a bunch of telecom boards that have gold fingers. Why wouldn't they be considered finger cards? Perhaps because the general price range for buying telecom seems to be around $3-6. Making the lower half of the range less than finger card price? I certainly hope there's more to it than that. Please advise.
When talking about fingerboards, there are a few things you have to consider.
First, there are three types of plating, type 1, 2 and 3
Type 1 is 99.7% gold
Type 2 is 99.0% gold
Type 3 is 99.9% gold
All expressed as minimum
Then there are different hardness grades, a, b, c and d but I won't get into that as it doesn't matter for this explanation.
Then there are 5 different classes
Class 00 is 20 micro inches
Class 0 is 30 micro inches
Class 1 is 50 micro inches
Class 2 is 100 micro inches
Class 3 is 200 micro inches
So you have percentage of the gold plate in actual gold, the hardness (Which doesn't matter for this) and the thickness.
Telecom, Military, RF Shielding and a few other types are usually Class 3
Most people do not consider the other things that determine value, Class 3 is great, but if it only covers 30% of the fingerboard, then the lower thickness might actually have more if it covers 80% of the board. Here are examples of what I am talking about.
If you look at this board, you will notice there is very little space between the gold plated fingers:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56505223/In...III_Katmai.jpg
Here is another picture I took not long back of the same example:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56505223/20...2020.35.23.jpg
Here is a picture of another slot card that is almost solid gold plate on the fingerboard:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56505223/20...2020.35.40.jpg
These are generally class 1
Here is an example of Class three gold plating, this is Al with Class 3 RF Shielding gold plating
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56505223/20...2011.26.39.jpg
Notice how buttery it looks
Here is an example of hospital equipment finger boards, you can see the dull gold color, this would be Class 3 gold plating, but only over about 50-60% of the fingerboard.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56505223/ch...6a6ad0ac12.jpg
Here is a mix of fingerboards, some close cut, some not, some with wide spaces between the gold fingers, so some of these fingerboards only cover about 30% of the board.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56505223/Sc...48.11%20PM.jpg
So, what determines the value of fingerboards, is the thickness of the gold plating, how close the gold fingers are together, and the percentage of gold in the gold plating. This is why different fingerboards will bring different prices. The values vary greatly.
I have run fingerboards and barely recovered a gram per lb, and others I have recovered almost over 4+ grams per lb. The values vary a lot, thus the prices paid vary greatly. Because it takes so much effort to sort them properly, and to pay accordingly, scrap yards have their own way of classifying the fingerboards as to allow for a large enough buffer in case the fingerboards have far less than suspected.
Scott
I came across a bunch of telecom boards that had fingers like you find on some dell motherboards and they were about the size of motherboards populated by IC chips. I threw them in with my finger cards. I have seen a lot of posts saying if you cut the fingers off motherboards you still get motherboard price, so it only makes sense that if you leave the fingers on you get a better price like finger cards price maybe:confused:
also pics might help determine their value my .02
In my experience a motherboard is a motherboard. Value doesn't change whether it has a gold finger on or not. SThey would not be a higher grade with finger left on.
I believe ozzy214 is right but if your buyer pays mixed motherboard pricing or large and small socket MBs, he would likely not count them as small socket. Thus, I believe you could send them a load of these small socket Dells and still get mixed motherboard pricng for them. I've also read on here, that some buyers will allow you to trim the fingers off the Dell MBs without any price deduction.
@ Flinthills: If the board itself is medium grade but has gold fingers you will likely get some median between medium grade and finger card grade. If the board is telecom and also has gold fingers you will likely receive the median between finger card and high-grade telecom .
Thank you Jeremiah. What you have stated is what I'm hoping turns out to be the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeremiah