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Does anybody know much gold is on 1# lb. of gold fingers? How many lbs. of finger boards to get 1lb of gold fingers? I know some boards are smaller than others but just a ballpark figure would be good. I'm going to experiment with this and see what I come up with.
If the buyers are paying 70.00 a pound for gold fingers with gold around 1600.00 then there would be 2/10 of an ounce of gold or less.
If there is 2/10 of an ounce of gold to 1lb of fingers I would be doing the happy gold dance all the way to the bank.At 1600 per ounce 2/10 of an ounce would be 320.00. I think it would be more like 2/10 of a gram but I don't know how many grams in a troy ounce.
My bad, it should have been 4/100 of an ounce. Must be my okie calculator.
31.1 grams per ounceQuote:
Originally Posted by happyscraper
OhNo! Not one of those! ??Quote:
Originally Posted by freonjoe
I threw that in just for you, Bear. Don't smack me with your okie suitcase!
Im from OK too. And my Okie calculator is usually my 9 fingers.
I only count 7 from here, must be old guy's eyes.
Um if its only 4/100 and oz for 1 pound of fingers we get 51.44 per gram of gold. 1.13 grams of gold= 1lb of fingers. Means that our buyers selling to refiners would be loosing money. They still have to pay the refiner as well. So in my own opinion its more then 4/100an oz. (pound of fingers melted into gold would come out to $58.13)
I would put it closer to 3.2 grams to 5.5 grams max depending on the share the refiner gets. Doing it smart you would cover for the cost of refinement and double the investment that you took. Plus padding for market fluctuation. Plus all overhead of the company is in there as well.
Every 10 pounds of fingers would bring in 1 oz of gold to the customer i think.
(this entire post is speculation till i try it myself.)
we were averaging around 40 pounds of finger cards to get 1 pound of fingers
I have heard numbers like 2-4 grams/lb myself. If the average is 3g, then the buyer is making 2x cost before time and chemicals are accounted for. Which seems very reasonable to me. I actually have 300g of RAM fingers in AP right now, I will try to remember to update you folks with the yield. I have another lb of PCI fingers to run next, so I can tell you the yield on that as well.
Isn't there other PM's other than gold on the boards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by happyscraper
Yes platinum, palladium, silver, copper,lead,tin.
Here is what i have come up with over the several years i have been doing fingers:::::
1 sound,video card = 2g of close cut fingers. 4-6 cards
1lb fingers =2g of GOLD
14-15.5lb. fingers =1 troy ounce of GOLD
Ball park figure the number of cards needed will be around 3500 sound and video .
You can have an average of 1g to 5g (very reare) per lb of fingers. A lot depends on how much of the circuit board is left on the fingers when they are reoved from the board's. Also of course age, grade and size of finger's makes a difference.
At our offer of $80.00 per lb. on fingers that is 14% more than EwasteD's $70.00 per lb. and 11% abover Boardsort's $72.00 per lb.. This is not ment to take anything away from either of these guy's because I like and will work with both of them now and in the future and have a lot of respect for them.
Good info to have, thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by trashmaster
well im sitting on 50 pounds of fingers and boards that are better than finger grade waiting for gold to go up, they are processed and ready to sell
at 14-15.5lb. fingers =1 troy ounce of GOLD so it looks like i have atleast 4 ounces worth which is good
check out this lot i just bought at a measly $10 per pound loaded down with double sided solid gold plating:
53 lbs 98 Pieces CPU Boards Gold PM Recovery Scrap not Ceramic 386 486 Look | eBay
For referenceQuote:
Originally Posted by happyscraper
31.1 grams per toz
453.59 grams per lb
14 toz per lb
Hope that helps.
I just recently processed 270 lbs of gold fingers from old PC boards, the reason I know they are old is because it was WHITE PCB that they were on (which is bad bad bad, it was discontinued in electronics in the US back in 1979). These are considered to be high yield because back then they just slathered the gold on. Industry has since changed greatly.
so 270 lbs gave me a final yield of 536 grams. So you take 536 grams, divide that by 270 lbs and you come up with a yield of 1.98 grams of Au per lb.
The plating on these gold fingers was thicker, but the yield seems kind of low, right? Wrong, even though these are considered to be thick gold plating because of it's age and date of manufacture, it is the gaps between the gold fingers that matter. They had huge gaps so the boards, front to back, were probably 35%-40% total gold plated surface There seems to be a lot of talk on this board about what yields are, and this is the reason it's so difficult to explain what I see, through my eyes, as a refiner. Everyone is looking for hard numbers and that just simply isn't the way the world works in regards to recovering precious metals from scrap. I posted in another thread about this here:
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/elect...ht=#post118376
But here is the flip side to understanding your material better. You can then educate people who refine, specially as a hobby, in your ebay posts or offers to sell on forums like this. If you state in your auction for example, to look at the gold fingers, and point out the very little space between the gold plating, and that's why you are asking for more, people will be willing to pay more. That means, if your fingers are close cropped, the different between 50% gold plating and 90% gold plating over the fingers. It could mean almost double the money, for you. And the end buyer will appreciate the fact that they are purchasing material that will bear more precious metals. As you inform them, they become more loyal, and trusting of you.
Refining is an art, it's craft work and knowledge. As a refiner, I also believe that scrapping is an art, it's craft work, and takes knowledge of all kinds of material, how to process it, separate it so that you can make the most from your hard work and labor. You are practicing in practical terms what people who attend college to obtain a 4 year degree in material handling never experience. You probably, as scrappers, know far more about the material you are dealing with than those people who spend 10s of thousands of dollars attending college do. This is truly one of those industries that there is very little written about, and most everything you learn is hard won and proprietary. If you are a scrapper dealing in electronics, this is even more true, it's not just about picking up and dropping off a load, if you intend to make as much as you are able. It's about knowing what the material is, knowing the difference in why one lb of fingers is only worth 1/2 gram, and another lb is worth 2 grams.
Scott
Right. The problem im finding is people think that solid plating is worth the same or less than fingers because no one puts out pricing on it for scrap. When actually since there is no gaps in the plating it is worth 2-4 times as much as fingers. Therefore i am sitting on all of this ultra high grade material that is very hard to sell.Quote:
Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks
Unfortunately, you sometimes have to educate the buyer or they will perceive the material you are selling as being worth less.
Good gold fingers have what I would call 50% gold plating, it's equal space for the gold leads as it is for the gaps, and usually on both sides. Really good fingers that come from isa cards, etc, that has very little gaps can be considered about 90% gold plating.
Think of this. We are talking surface area and weight, surface area that is covered in gold, and the total weight. If you have what I would call 50% plate, but they were not close cut, then you have to consider the portion that is excess in the weight/surface area, and if it's a lot that can change the percentage from 50% to 30% if it's really bad.
There are so many variables, that you have to develop an eye for it. And then, if you are posting on ebay, you have to point out these facts to the people buying because often times they have not either thought about this at all, or they just simply never learned.
Scott
That is what i call a sales pitch or creating a story in order to get the sale. I have the eye for it, but 90% of the escrap buyers out there dont, beacuse they dont specialize in separating by grade. Like just with fingers you have about 20 different grades and subgrades. You have single sided, double sided, thick boards, thin boards, fingers on mylar, and so on. Id prefer to sell it here, but the problem is all of the buyers here are base rate buyers. That means they have a fixed price for certain types of material. I have no problem selling my low grade fingers to one of the buyers here for $60. But at $60 theres no way id sell the high grade fingers to them because i know better.
I do not envy your job, honestly. I am fortunate enough to know what I can sell my end product for, so there is a little forgiveness built in if I make a mistake in my figures. But for people who scrap, you not only have to know all the tricks of the trade that make the difference between making a living at this or not, but you also have to be business savvy enough to understand the market, what you can be paid for a certain type of scrap, what is a fair price in your area to buy it for, how much time and effort it is going to take to get the money back out and buffer enough so that if you cannot find someone to purchase at the price you want, you don't loose money.
I know it has to be tough.
Everyone is trying to be business savvy and retain the lions share of the profit. Refiners don't know how much goes into scrapping certain things, and scrappers usually are not aware of the work and cost involved in refining. Each accordingly seems to think they deserve to make most of the profit.
You have a lot of great looking material jghilino, you might be better served trying to find someone to toll refine for you. I think you have enough material that you should be able to find a toll refiner who would do it for 10% of the value. And I bet you can find someone to do that for you on the GRF forum. Just post pictures, weights, and a request to find an honest refiner who is willing to refine it for 10% of the yield. There is one person in particular I would warn you about, and although I will not post negative things about people on a forum, if you ask me about a particular person you are thinking about doing business with, I will tell you if it is that person or not.
If I wasn't so swamped I might make you an offer on your material. I am at the end of my year, I want to close this quarter so I can do all my paperwork before xmas, and trying to clean up everything so that I can move into a bigger location in January. As far as toll refining is concerned, I no longer do that type of work, but there really are a lot of people on GRF who are really honest, and would do a great job.
Scott