So, Scrappers, you are trying to figure out whether or not to cut the gold fingers off your motherboards and other types of electronic scrap you are getting. But the real question will always be, “Is this really worth doing?”
Years ago, electronic waste was worth much more money than it is today, even with the gold prices being so much lower. With increased technology comes fewer metals inside of electronics (kind of an oxymoron!) and, thus, less gold.
By cutting off the tips and edges of the Motherboards, RAM, and CPU chips, you are making it so that the rest of the unit (where most of the weight is) now has even less precious metals, and more scrap yards won’t pay you more than $0.25 per lb for units with gold taken off.
Sometimes, there are things worth doing and not worth doing; we recommend leaving motherboards intact while scrapping them. Just pull off the aluminum heatsinks or any large piece of steel you see.
If you are interested in completely taking the gold off the board, you can research some information about gold recovery from e-scrap. But be careful with the various chemicals and procedures to do this correctly. We suggest you experiment a few times with a limited number of RAM boards and other materials before you take a whole load of them.
Remember, because technology has improved dramatically over the years, the amount of gold in materials is less and, therefore, requires a larger collection of boards to recover the gold. It may take you a while to collect enough to make it worthwhile. You may want to consider partnering up with a fellow scrapper in your area if you are looking to recover gold from a large quantity.
Scrap ya later!
-Tom
