Welcome to Boardsort™ - Learn - Sell - Profit -

Using an LG AX155... one of the most representative flip phones still on the market.
First
=========================================
whole phone with battery
3oz
Total Weight: 0.1875 lbs
Total Payout: $0.19

=========================================
Whole phone w/o battery
2.3 Ounces of Cell Phones without battery at $3.75 per pound = $0.54
0.7 Ounces of Li-Ion Cell Phone Batteries at $0.65 per pound = $0.03
Total Weight: 0.1875 lbs
Total Payout: $0.57

=========================================
Now sorted!
Board Sort
0.01 Ounces of Clean Gold Fingers at $35.00 per pound = $0.02
0.4 Ounces of Clean Cell Phone Board at $8.50 per pound = $0.21
0.7 Ounces of Li-Ion Cell Phone Batteries at $0.65 per pound = $0.03
Total Weight: 0.06937499999999999 lbs
Total Payout: $0.26

Not from boardsort.
0.1 oz Stainless Steel Clean 300-308 at 38c /lb = $0.002
1.1 oz carbon/steel shred at 5c/lb = $0.003
0.2 oz Al#3 at 32c/lb = $0.004
0.3 oz Silver PC/ABS at $2.00/lb = $0.038
0.1 oz LCD (not broken) at $0.05 = $0.000
One LCD screen broken (illegal trade in Illinois) no value (drat)
rest didn't tip my scale with a 5 decimal setting. aka xx.xxx oz

30.7 cents


Final thoughts. If you have tonnage, time, staff; then yes you will make considerably more by sorting, breaking down, and totally scrapping phones. (like Chris/BoardSort does). One phone doesn't give you enough gold to tip the scale but at 10 my gold wire, gold pins, and gold flat contacts all do weigh up, and that's where the value is for Boardsort to buy at that higher complete phone rate. @ 10 phones (and every 10 of these LGs) I'm pulling about $12. But The best buyer I have for gold scrap won't buy less than 1/10th ounce of anything nor make any payout under $100 (he/they pay by wire transfer) so I'm sitting on a stored value credit every 10 phones. :(

If you have one, five, ten phones...! Not worth it. Take the higher "without battery" rate and save yourself the trouble.

My thoughts... If you're dealing with recycling alone and using boardsort, local, others etc, sell the phones outright.

If you have and/or use a refiner, or do refining yourself... Sell boardsort smart phones, rugged phones, flippers, sliders, ...

Basically the only place I really make money (lots of it actually) is on candy bar (especially motorola and Nokia) and any pre candy bar brick, luggable, tower, etc.
those have a crap load of gold/silver and much much more not to mention other commodities and considering they weigh half- to two pounds+ each!