Fair pricing?

First of all hi and thanks for any advice you may have.

I've been scraping computers for about the last two years, and for the better part of the last year, selling all but the plastic from the computers to a local scrap yard. Up until the recent dive in the price of gold, we've had a fairly smooth relationship, but it has been going a bit south slowly over the last few months. When gold was about $1,800 per ounce, we were getting $3.65/pound for motherboards (small heat sinks and batteries attached) and cards (with the metal plate attached). While it was around $1,600, we got $3.50. But now that its been falling under $1,600, we're suddenly being told he'll only give us $3.00/pound. To me, this seems like a harsh fall! Does this seem reasonable or should I start looking for other outlets? We generally bring 50-150lbs, monthly, not counting all other components.

Check the buyers threads from the main page

That is not bad pricing for a local scrap yard. Of course our buyers here pay more, especially for finger cards. I also get 3.00 per pound locally, so I usually only ship finger cards, server boards, and other higher grade items.

One thing to think about is that to a scrap yard, 50-150 lbs is a drop in the bucket. Many yards have low pricing on boards because they do not do much volume. This means they have to sit on them for a while until they can ship. If you can bring in more volume you might be able to negotiate a better price.

I would take 3.00 for my motherboards. It's about what I'm getting shipping the boards. I would take 3.00 for all my boards if I had a place I could just drop them off and get cash.

Local for me...............

Purchasing – - – Last Updated: 04/01/2013


Circuit Boards - Grade A (green computer motherboards, edge cards, telcom boards; with no Batteries or AL heat sinks)
$2.50/Lb

Circuit Boards – Grade B (motherboards with Batteries + AL heat sinks, Grade A boards with small transformers)
$2.25/Lb

Circuit Boards – Grade C (rainbow motherboards; with no Batteries or AL heat sinks)
$1.25/Lb

Circuit Boards – Grade D (TV/VCR, Power Supply, boards with heavy AL and iron/transformers)
$0.10/Lb

RAM (Gold or Gold/Silver lead mixed, also includes cleaned P2/P3 processor boards)
$6.00/Lb

RAM (50% or more Silver/Tin leads)
$2.50/Lb

Wire from electronics (without ends)
$0.70/Lb

Wire from electronics (with ends)
$0.60/Lb

Thin Ribbon Wire from electronics (with or without ends)
$0.35/Lb

Gold Tip Connector Ends (Printer/Serial/USB Cable Ends; NO Power Cable ends)
$1.00/Lb

AL Heat Sinks (clean no Steel)
$0.30/Lb

AL/Cu Heat Sinks (clean no Steel)
$0.50/Lb

Dirty AL Heat Sinks (Heat Sinks with Steel attached)
$0.05/Lb

AL Hard Drives (with Circuit Boards)
$0.40/Lb

Power Supplies (with wires)
$0.25/Lb
Power Supplies (no wires)
$0.15/Lb

CD/Floppy Drives (separate from other steel and Power Supplies)
$0.13/Lb

Rechargeable Batteries (not leaking: NiCad, LiIon, NiMH, Lead-Acid)
$0.10/Lb

Lithium Ion Batteries (not leaking, separated from other rechargeable Batteries)
$0.20/Lb

Processors (prices vary greatly due to change of Market Conditions, minimum 1 Lb of each grade or drops to lowest grade in batch)

P2/P3 Slot Processors (complete with Heat Sinks, etc.)
$3.00/Lb

SUN, IBM Flat Processors (flat processors with no pins)
$5.00/Lb

Green, Plastic, P4 Processors (small square chips not soldered on board, no AL)
$9.00/Lb

Ceramic P1 Processors (no AL Heat Sinks, etc.)
$25.00/Lb

Motorola, Pentium Pro (no AL Heat Sinks, etc.)
$35.00/Lb

486/386 Processors (no AL Heat Sinks, etc.)
$90.00/Lb





I can only sell select items like wire, heat sinks, hard drives, power supplies, the rest goes to the forum buyers.

Deflation is causing metals prices to go down along with the global economic depression reducing demand, and increasing supply as scrappers need money to pay bills so more scrap is being sent it/processed. Hang on to your boards, better prices are coming. Take advantage of the low prices right now to stockpile more scrap.

One thing to keep in mind is that while the value of something like a board fluctuates with the price of the commodity (gold, copper, etc.) in question, the costs of recovering that value don't. For example, just pulling random numbers here, let's say it costs $2 to process a pound of boards and recover the value from it. Let's say a particular board is worth $6 per lb. due to the value of the copper, gold, nickel, etc. in that board. Now the prices of all those metals tank hardcore, and all the metals recovered from that same board are now only worth $4. Well, it still costs $2 per pound in either case to process, that hasn't changed.

So again using those random numbers; now that $6 board is a $4 board, or after costs, that $4 board is now a $2 board. It's a far smaller pie to split up than it actually looks at first. And I'm definitely NOT saying that this is the entire reason behind your yard's pricing; I actually doubt it is. But it is something you have to keep in mind.