Quote Originally Posted by eesakiwi View Post
They are flash plated just at the end where you can see the gold. The rest is probably brass with a tin, or such coating. I have no idea what they are worth in gold after recovery or on 'the market'.

Not all of the connectors are like this one. Some are 100% gold plated & some are only 1%.

Even the same strand of interconnect cable will have different amounts of gold on different connectors. As a general lead, the older the better for gold coverage percentage.

These are the pins that I think people on ebay are melting down & selling as 'gold drops'. Theres a lot said about the morality of such sellers. but I think they are selling the partially gold plated pins, melted down into a blob, for making jewelery from.

And saving the high percentage gold pins for gold recovery. They are off setting their time spent picking the plugs apart.
That's kinda what I was thinking since it was only the tips that looked like it.