gold or not?

[jd]

I've been wondering about some sellers/buyers "quest for gold" on Ebay.

Are the everyday "sound cards/video cards/motherboards and others"... onboard pins(jumper pin) really gold?

Time to take the tweezers and pails out and go "pulling for gold"

...or is it worth it

[gmanbc]

They have gold in them but there aint much as it is only gold plate. The older ones are heavily gold plated and so they are worth more. Same with the chips.

Lee

[jd]

...Then I won't bother looking for those tweezers
Cool, thanx!


Actually, I have 1 more question,----->
How about the "gold tongues" on the bottom of the cards???

[JAC]

microns* thick! you would do better going down your local cake decorations shop and buying some gold leaf.



* A micron is a millionth of a meter

[chipcollector]

I read somewhere that 3-4lbs of 486's makes about 12 grams of pure 24kt gold, which means about 10lbs makes about a ounce of 24kt gold!! is that correct? It sort of makes sense by the way those scrappers bid on cpu's these days!

[JAC]

The problem is gold has made a good recovery in price on the market so now it is viable again to extract gold. Gold prices were VERY high ( twice as high as they are now I think ) about 25- 30 years or so ago.. this is another reason why we dont have many old chips now I am very saddened to see big boxes of cpus being scrapped for gold.

[Marcin]

I'm satisfied for gold scrap. That is reason why CPUs are more and more valuable Yes that is bad when we think there are many C4004 and other rare CPUs destroyed for little piece of gold but could be better if all of us have example 4 units of C4004 ?

[JAC]

more is better!

[metalmaker]

I have done some gold recovery work - thus my username - which is how I got into chip collecting...

To answer your question. It is not worth your time to remove gold pins except of very vintage material. The problem is that the pins are usually tin with gold plate. The tin makes it harder to recover the gold. And it is very little gold. You will use more money in chemicals than you will get in gold. Old pins that are copper with gold plate can be good if you can get alot (like a double handfull of them). Large connectors from the 1970s can yield good too. The "fingers" on cards are worth cutting off if you are going to throw the card away anyway. Again, 1970s = good, later = so so, but they are copper w/ gold plate - easier to refine. Again, you need a pile of them and you may get a gram or two of gold.

A 486 chip has about $2 of gold each. you can get 3-4 grams from about 20 of them (about 1 pound).

The stuff sells on Ebay for way more than it is worth when you consider your time, chemical costs, and toxicity. Better to spend your money on gold bullion if you want gold (really good idea imo). I sell a lot of computer gold scrap on ebay and then spend $ on chips. Sometimes the prices I get are so crazy I feel guilty.

MM

[Marcin]

[slava]

[JAC]

more is better, we want more people to have them!