Depopulated RAM

OK, so the other night I was surfing E-bay and found this lot of RAM with a buy it now that I could not pass up. After I bought, I looked closer at the auction and realized that (as sort of stated) in the auction that there were no chips on the RAM.

Here is the big question.

If you were to take a stick of RAM and cleanly remove the chips from it, would it now be worth more or less than with the chips on.

First of all, let's not worry about why they were removed, they just were for some reason and I now have them. The little tiny items on the stick are still there.

If those chips are worth somewhere around $6 a pound and removed, would that not make the resulting value of the remaining board with it's gold fingers and other various gold tracings worth a bit more than the original stick of RAM per pound? I would take a picture and post it, but it basically looks like the chips were never populated to begin with. Running my finger over where the chips were on some of the boards I can barely feel that there had indeed been chips on them at one time. But to look at them, some of them almost look like they had never been populated at all, even though I am pretty sure they were and all removed. Funny thing is that none of them show any damage at all. I would think that chiseling off the chips in a manner that almost leaves no trace of their presence, would have left other marks on the board., but these things are clean as a whistle.

Looking for some opinions on this and what they may be worth. Especially from Noble or Barren, but any thoughts are welcome for this discussion.

I have fingers out to a couple of buyers to get their prices on these.

Parrothead, This was talked about before.

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/disma...am-sticks.html

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Originally Posted by freonjoe

Parrothead, This was talked about before.

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/disma...am-sticks.html

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Wow. Thanks for pointing out that thread. I never saw that when it was around.

Looks like it may or may not be worth more or the same as regular RAM as I expected.

Now back to a discussion on why it may or may not be worth as much as RAM.

I get the same for blank ram and gold ram, 13.00 #. Thing is the blank ram is not as heavy as regular ram.

2/3 of the gold is in the chips

Parrot, I've had over 300lbs of this, and its takes about one pound to make one gram of gold, off the fingers, and such. The value of the board is less then if it had the ram chips on them.

I sold my 300lbs for approx 12.50 per pound now that was a year ago, so now it probably be worth about 10 to 8 bucks per pound.

so again figure for every pound equal to one gram of gold, I've done the refining myself on some of this and that is what I came up with.

Hope that helps.

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Originally Posted by jthetravelingguy

2/3 of the gold is in the chips

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Anything to back this up?? Inquiring minds would like to know,,,

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Anything to back this up?? Inquiring minds would like to know,,,

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Got that info perusing GRF

Thats why there isn't much of a price difference between gold and silver/tin ram.

Perhaps a link to the GRF as far as the info you've recv thanks

It comes from an analysis of many different posts and im not going to try and find each one but i will make an attempt to break it down for you guys

Analysis of different info:

One post claimed a consistent .8g of gold per kilo of ram
1kg = 2.2 pounds
1lb = approx 24 sticks of ram
1lb of fingers = an average of 2g of gold
Information on mikethescrappers recent video: 106 ram sticks ( 2kg or 4.4lb ) = 5.6 oz of fingers

Set up a simple proportion:

5.6/106 = 16/x

x=302.85, so we we will say 303 ram sticks fingers = 1lb of ram sticks fingers

another proportion:

4.4/106 = x/303

x= 12.57

So approximately 12.6lbs of ram will give you 1lb of fingers

Todays gold price: $1327 a troy oz or $42.67 a gram
2g = $85.33

12.6lb of ram = gold value of just fingers equals $85.33

Ok now lets look at what people are paying for RAM. Highest price ive seen from a straight goto buyer on this forum so far is 14.25 a pound

14.25 * 12.6 = 179.55

85.33/179.55 = 47.5%

So yes technically its a bit more, but lets factor in other things.

Applying a typical rule of thumb of a 20% profit margin assuming the buyer is reselling to a refiner as opposed to refining himself= 35.91 increasing the price to the final buyer (ie the refiner ) to 215.46.

85.33/215.46 = 39.6%

A little off on the 33% mark but not by much especially considering that some of these variables can be adjusted such as profit margin. It can be made to fit the 33% realm.

Anyways the point of this long winded post is to show that most of the gold isnt what you see and as a previous poster succinctly put "Thats why there isn't much of a price difference between gold and silver/tin ram."

Look up a thread by Patnor101 I believe his name is. He has a whole thread on incinerating flat packs, ram chips etc. he gives yield data as well. The wire that runs through most of those chips is very fine and difficult to see with the naked eye BUT, they are solid gold. The process to get to them is difficult but if I remember correctly they yield better than the fingers. Maybe Noble or Etack can weigh in on this. The cost in getting to them is higher than the fingers so that may be why they do not pay as well if the finger is missing.

oh also forgot to take into account the refiner will be looking at making 20% profit

which takes us to 85.33/258.55 = 33% exactly

Nice breakdown Mrj. Also have to take into acct there are other precoius metals like Ag, Pt and Pd if there are mlcc's on the ram cards.

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Originally Posted by BRASSCATCHER

Look up a thread by Patnor101 I believe his name is. He has a whole thread on incinerating flat packs, ram chips etc. he gives yield data as well. The wire that runs through most of those chips is very fine and difficult to see with the naked eye BUT, they are solid gold. The process to get to them is difficult but if I remember correctly they yield better than the fingers. Maybe Noble or Etack can weigh in on this. The cost in getting to them is higher than the fingers so that may be why they do not pay as well if the finger is missing.

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Patnor is a wealth of information on many things. Definitely worthwhile to follow his posts

Getting the gold from ic chips while requiring alot more prep than fingers is still doable. It all depends on how much you value your time and is it worth it to you.

Dint know about the ram chips but I have saved every ic and eprom since I started and plan on having an incinerator ready sometime this fall. Gonna keep toasty on those cool evenings

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Originally Posted by jthetravelingguy

oh also forgot to take into account the refiner will be looking at making 20% profit

which takes us to 85.33/258.55 = 33% exactly

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I think anyone doing this on a small scale for 20% is cheating you or is a fool to there own profit. Chips take a lot of time and creates a lot of waste.

If you have 1000# this might be profitable to them as the volume for the same amount of work would make more profit.

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Originally Posted by BRASSCATCHER

Look up a thread by Patnor101 I believe his name is. He has a whole thread on incinerating flat packs, ram chips etc. he gives yield data as well. The wire that runs through most of those chips is very fine and difficult to see with the naked eye BUT, they are solid gold. The process to get to them is difficult but if I remember correctly they yield better than the fingers. Maybe Noble or Etack can weigh in on this. The cost in getting to them is higher than the fingers so that may be why they do not pay as well if the finger is missing.

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Large refiners are having them ground and smelted. they aren't cutting fingers.

Grind and burn this is what happens.

I don't understand why the buyers shy away from the cut ram this would make great gold content to mix with ram.

Eric

They arent shying away from cut ram. Like was said earlier its the thought that since you can not see whats inside it makes people leary to pay for it. But then again if you are buying you should have an idea if what it will yield.