I buy quite a bit of scrap at auctions. Mostly electronics but I'll buy anything if it's cheap enough and I can make a few bucks.
The whole key to making money is that profit is going to be determined when you BUY, not when you sell.
You have to know what you are buying, what it's worth, and what you are going to do with it, PRIOR to buying something. If not, just go to the gas station and buy a hand full of scratch-offs.
In my situation, here is how I view printers...
Laserjets are too big, bulky, and too much plastic for me to deal with (I can find a far more effective use of the space they take up). They don't sell locally very well and I wouldn't want to pay to ship one. However, I do get stuck with them as part of other lots I buy. When I but a lot with laserjets (or other printers) I NEVER include them in my calculated price. They are just extra. I pull the memory and boards, the toner goes to office max, the rest goes in with the dirty steel (my local yard takes them with no problems but some yards don't).
To me they fall into the "valueless" category, just no money to be made. By the time you drive to an auction, pay for a pallet of printers, load them up, take them home, squeeze the few pennies you can out of them, pay for gas, and consider the time you spent, you are pretty much doing all that work for free.
Most experienced people in
ewaste also avoid printers which is why you will see large lots going for next to nothing. I am not saying they don't have any value, just not enough to purchase them.
Your best bet is really to get a few printers for FREE, take them apart, and figure out what the real value is to you after seeing their actual value in materials as well as the time you spent on them before you ever consider buying a lot of printers.
Originally Posted by Phantoms001
I buy quite a bit of scrap at auctions. Mostly electronics but I'll buy anything if it's cheap enough and I can make a few bucks.
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