Silver In Circuit Boards

I've been working through several old computer and industrial machinery (late 70's early 80's). I've noticed the paths on the circuit board are much much larger than what I normally see - between a quarter and a third of an inch wide, and they are on top of the board. Several of these appear to be silver. Now I have a pound or two of boards with nothing of signifigant value except the silver on them. Some have small resistors or a few small capacitors, but for the most part these are empty boards. I will check with my normal buyer (EWasted), but I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with these. Am I correct this is likely silver plating on the old boards? Are they anything better than low grade for anyone?

http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/...ps601ed45f.jpg

http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/...ps37d217dc.jpg

That is silver solder not silver plate. Some buyers will pay a little better than low grade for them. Boards from the 50's and 60's have even more silver than those.

it's not always silver, can just be lead or tin plate. it's normally just lead.

Its a Tin/Lead solder. The tracks (traces) are thicker & different because they were done by hand. By sticking different stickers & tape on the prefab board, then copying them using a Xerox sorta machine.

These days its all laser printed & really really accurate.

very interesting! I'll send Mariovan email and see if these are even worth shipping. I'm guessing not.

When I was in college, we would make boards from scratch. It involved taking a board that was completely plated and laying out the traces that we wanted with some black tape. The etching process would eat off the area that was not taped and then we were left with a board with the traces that we wanted. Similar to what eesakiwi is saying. It is a cool process.

It's purty looking board tho(far right, blue one)!

I'd give you .50 cents for the green paper one all the way to the left. :p

Sirscrapalot - Fredo!

With that many years aging, if it's silver it would be tarnished.

Get a test kit off of ebay. The only way you will know for sure if its silver or not. Only takes a drop to test and the kit will run around $20 for a decent one.
If those boards are out of test, military or any equipment that takes any measurements then it will most likely be silver or solver solder.