Major motherboard price drop?

Went to my local yard today and was sickened by what they had to say to me. Based off boardsorts new mobo grading policy, I decided it would be worth my time to bring my "lesser" value mobo's to my yard for their price of 2.25/lb.

When I got there, the the non-ferros scale opperater informed me if an assay report from their buyer making all boards not green and any with multi-colored connections nearly worthless in comparison. So I separated my boards according to their new designation and got the above price for them.

The rest they wanted to pay me .75/lb. Needless to say, those came home with me.

Has anyone else run into this issue?

Figures this would happen when I have 180 computers to disasemble.

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Edit I did word my title wrong.

Nope...we are still buying them as we where before. If you shop them to us right now we are paying $3.30 a pound. Now this price can change if you wait as gold has been kinda funny...but we do not care what kind of board you send us...motherboard is a motherboard to us.

a variety of reasons. there are couple different common grading systems. too many new 'buyers' and sellers who have little knowledge of recovery rates and costs. (look on ebay.) more buyers coming in who are trying to work on thin margins. fewer board processors. higher minimums for processing lots. longer lead times. ( if you are shipping to europe to refine you are looking at several months with a 30,000 lb + minimum )

I just read today where gold is back to last julys numbers maybe that has something to do with it. Customers get more specific in the scrap industry when prices start to drop off a cliff. I am also commenting on something I have no clue about. lol.

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Originally Posted by PistoneScrapProcessing

I just read today where gold is back to last julys numbers maybe that has something to do with it. Customers get more specific in the scrap industry when prices start to drop off a cliff. I am also commenting on something I have no clue about. lol.

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What happens is that some of the buyers stop buying when gold drops...they only want to be ontop of it when gold is up.

So since gold has dropped some of the main buyers have stopped buying... for that reason some of the smaller yards and or even the large recycling/scrap yards have lost there buyers and they had to move to cheaper buyers.

One person who I was selling some of the smaller items (cpu's and memory) down here in Dallas has told me they are no longer buying anything until gold hits back up in the high 1700 or 1800s...reason being he feels its not worth his time when he can do other things but I have around 6 other buyers and so I have not really lost anything.....there are alot of people like this out in this market....anyway I will stop there.

I understand the fluctuation of gold value vs scrap value, but for my yard to up and say everyday motherboard is now much less valuable sounds kinda fishy. The guy pointed out a pcmi slot where the connector was green and said "nope, that low grade". Just made for a bad visit to the yard. [/rant]

tc, We had the same thing happen last month with the ferrous scrap we were cutting. All of a sudden they called and said we couldn't ship them anything else over 24 inches and bigger then 5 foot plate. I got a chuckle out of it they new the price was on its way down and wanted to protect there necks which is understandable but I have been shipping the same mill scrap for 4 years and it was never ever ever cut to size i always cut a few inches over both ways so for them to pick out a few pieces and say they were 31 inches wide was kinda fishy. I drove by the mill and found out why they had piles of scrap all different grades everywhere. They just didn't want to lose more money then they had to. Then I heard that one yard had 20 loads rejected and laid off all there burners that made me laugh till my stomach hurt. I have never had a load rejected in my life and never plan to so for them to say something is to big or wasn't right was just kinda fishy. So sometimes when they have inventory they can't sell they start getting real specific for fear of rejection or downgrade so its kinda understandable with the gold price fluctuation in the marketplace for them to all of a sudden start segregating like that. Now this month total different story we are back to shipping it big and they took it and loved it. So just let the market settle and try again in a month if you can hold out for a month. That's my advice.

no longer buying anything until gold hits back up in the high 1700 or 1800s...reason being he feels its not worth his time when he can do other things <<

well, if they were paying a 1700 dollar based price, in todays 1550 dollar bid, that would make sense. since most buyers have dropped their price, the spread is still the same. or a bit better in some cases. i have actually kept some of my prices the same even with the drop in pm prices.

i can only speak for myself and the buyers i know. this has been a record month for material. a lot of folks have been scared by the price drop and are selling everything they have. i have slowed my buying only because i am out of floor space. and that has never happened before.

I am running out of floor space as well but the some people do not wan't to mess with it as they feel its not worth the trouble. When gold goes up...I pay more..when gold goes down I pay less but some people/buyers are not like that...they will just walk away and do something else..even move back to doing jewelry only.

i had a better profit margin when gold was under 1300 than when it hit 1700+.

it is ironic for someone to complain about ewaste margins when you consider the very thin margins on iron, steel, copper, aluminum, etc.

i deal with alter occasionally. they are working on a net gross of $220 / ton for copper. i would lock the doors and go fishing.

i just spent the day moving & stacking gaylords to make room for a truck coming in tomorrow. you could have come by and helped.

old dude was just discussing the crooks in this business. karat gold (jewelery) is full of them. some of those guys try to buy for pennies on the dollar.

Its funny you mention Alter, that is the company I am referring to in the original post. I wonder how bad their margin must be to offer $.75/lb for motherboards.

Here in Iowa, I took my boards down to the local yard last week - usually I'm getting ~3.30/lb for motherboard quality. The most he would give me was .90/lb for standard pentium4 class boards. I went from an expected payout of $150 to $75. I think I'll call from now on and check before I head out there, that was a huge surprise!

Where at in Iowa?

That's why IOWA stands for I Owe the World an Apology. Sorry...couldn't resist, raised in Minnesota.

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Originally Posted by tcfootball

Where at in Iowa?

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Marshalltown

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Originally Posted by tcfootball

Its funny you mention Alter, that is the company I am referring to in the original post. I wonder how bad their margin must be to offer $.75/lb for motherboards.

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alter works on really small margins. they just got the same dismal settlement for low grade motherboards that i got. less than half the return of standard mb's.

alter is a huge international company. they can and will turn down anything that does make their required margin. they move enough volume that they will still produce a profitable revenue.

most are grading motherboards now. soon everyone will be. and some recyclers do not take them at all. i am currently at $1.75/lb for low grade mb's and will probably drop that again.

the only way the price of these boards will go up is if gold goes up.