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Form a money aspect the best choice is it repair and refurbish items to sell used.
For selling boards; the best methodology is to not remove components. Every escrap specialiser, including boardsort, depend on some certain consistencies in the material, based on averages. To maintain those averages missing items will have to be quickly downgraded to another class. The few exceptions: generally socketed ICs can be removed for boards and sold separately as ICs without damaging the class rating, unless the board started as telco.
Refining is covered extensively here by myself and others. If you browse through some of the longer posts, especially in the non-boardsort topics here, you’ll find a very healthy debate on the subject.
If you’re just looking at the options and possibilities I have two general statements on the subject.
It can be a fun (but dangerous) hobby. Otherwise, don’t try.
Unless you have a sizeable bank account to dispose of in the high 5 digits, you’re plan is dead before you start. If you invest in the correct, expensive, tools, and have an unending supply of scrap in the tonnage... you can eventually break even and then make a sustainable income.
YouTube refiners are NOT living off their gold refining. They survive on monetised videos and product placement sponsorships.
The two most honest people to talk about refining on YouTube are scrap specialised posters. Ben, out of Australia, and Moose, in Main. Both of them refine. But as a side hobby. They both primarily resell items first. Scrap second.
Ben is very insightful for common scrap interests.
Moose focuses on escrap and occasional dabbles in other PM discussions; such as reverse electroplating. Unfortunately Moose is in a bad spot in his life at the moment and doesn’t post as often as he used to. But again to most honest posters don’t hide life problems, nor the reality of their hardships.
People who post videos pretending to get an ounce of gold from a pentium pro are so full of crap you can find my jagged reply’s in their comments. I dub them Mr Browns. Because in reality you’ll get a half dozen or so grams. Not an ounce. Sure a pentium pro can get you $200+ in gold. After Apx $100 in chemical treatment on properly milled source.
If you walked into one of the largest refineries and had free reign... and processed a single pentium pro alone? The actual output of all materials would be about $200-$225 at today’s rates. You would cost the refinery about $100-$125 in expenses such as materials and energy. So you’d pocket less than $100 and that should explain why boardsort pays $75 for them.
If you did all that yourself based on YouTube videos alone, you loose much of the other materials of value. Ultimately you’d freshen your pocket with $25-$30 after six months of effort. Recovering only gold, silver, and a platinum-palladium-silicon alloy. The last you couldn’t sell unless you had close to a Troy pound worth.
And then what? Cash for gold stores pay 45%-55% spot value. You can haggle into the 70s but they won’t accept you back a second time.
Bring it to a large jewellery chain and they’ll probably give you around 75%-82% spot. After you pay for an assay. Which would wipe out the value of your little buttons so you need many dozens of pentium pros to start.
You could Ebay it. But you’ll get even less unless you get a lucky with a first time buyer. Smart buyers on ebay tend to pay about 10%-25% spot. Myself included. That’s because the vast majority of non-stamped gold bars are made from melted pins and junk jewellery. Plate.
ebay buyers in general are buying the bars to refine into something better themselves. The largest and best rates buyers who won’t cause the seller problems pay a tiny percentage. In fact they tend to be members of the GRF. The Gold Refiners’ Forum is filled with some of the most knowledgeable hobby and professional refiners in the world. They are a treasure of information on the topic. They’re also a bit elitist and most don’t take kindly to “noobs”.
Which is problematic since you must post to keep the account active. But “stupid” comments will get you run off the site. So a catch 22 for beginners.
They’ll hate me for saying so but my suggest is to take a holiday weekend, sign up, make a post or two to unlock everything and read as MUCH as you can as quickly as possible. Make detailed notes. Writing things down.
If you get punted for some reason you got what you went for. If you get accepted and can stick around, all the better.
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