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Hello, I have a curiosity about some pins I have. this is mostly aimed at Lost with his vast knowledge.

These pins are all the same , all "brand new" unused, the inventory sheet included with them shows them to be military spec pins in the 99.7% gold purity. That being said i can't seem to find anywhere online that will list prices (retail) on any military spec gold plated items much less small pins such as these. The inventory sheet lists the description as MIL-G-45204A (this is how i determined the purity of the plating) but also shows M98001000 #11063 (which i believe is the model number) and all dates listed are in 1970. This leads me to believe they would be rather thick gold plating based on the military spec as well as reading through forums mentioning that gold plating was much thicker many years ago.

All in all I am just looking for any idea on what something like this might sell for retail and also what the scrap price might be (guesstimate wise, I am aware they would need an xrf test in order for an actual payout to be made) since I have to imagine these would be on the higher end of pricing in terms of Gold plated pins.

Gold plated pins would be your low end of possible scrap value; $5/lb currently. Not sure how to help beyond that. Good luck.

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Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Thank you for the reply Marked. Yes I understand base scrap price of gold plated pins is $5 per pound, and yes i understand that is a base or a general low end of gold plated pins as stated in other forum posts with any higher value being based on xrf/evaluation by Boardsort.

More of what i am getting at is the assumption that most gold plated pins are pulled from components for example gold pinned connector ends, most of which i would assume are rather low grade being consumer grade materials and also sort of hard to quantify how much gold might be there.... for example if i said i had 1 pound of goldplated pins i pulled from vga connectors this would be hard to measure being they would likely be from different cables each likely having different amounts of plating and even less likely to be recorded as to how much is on any given pins. Whereas these pins are known to be a specific grade (the military spec given above) as well as an age and possible model number, this combined with an understanding that there would be a specific threshold of how much gold is required to meet such a spec. Basically i am asking the community in the off chance someone out there has the knowledge base possibly a book/catalog/spec sheet that could quantify this for me or maybe even has a resource to site how much gold may have been used.

For example i am of the understanding this specifc military spec for gold plating is 99.7% pure gold (so we have a fineness rating). This just leaves how thick the plating is (which has been stated before in the forum, the thickness can vary greatly between manufacturers, manufacture dates, type of item being plated, etc.) such as plating on something that is expected to be connected and disconnected many times over its life would have much thicker plating than something that is never expected to be repeatedly connected/disconnected. Ordinarily i wouldnt ask such an oddball question but with the information i have specific to these pins and being military spec I thought maybe there would be some known parameters out there pertaining to these specifications.

Much like "aircraft grade aluminum" has known parameters to its composition versus the aluminum composition of a random used cooking pot made in china and purchased at a flea market.

I apologize if i am being long winded and confusing with my question.

Interesting question! Unfortunately I have no experience to give an answer. I know that I've seen multiple comments about mil-spec gold pins that are much higher content that standard pins. If you know of any gold refiners they may be able to help with the gold yield after processing. How many pounds of pins are in that bag?

There isent much, about 2 pounds. The other detail that makes me think there may be a decent yield from them is they are very small, much smaller than something like IDE connector pins. they are about the size of ceramic processor pins. In my mind making them have much more surface area of gold vs something like connector pins. But until they are xrf tested, refined, or spec sheets are found then who knows.

I understood what you were asking, I wasn't sure if you saw the price for scrap, so I offered the minimum possibility.

I will say I sent in some gold plated pins that ended up getting $11/lb in August last year. I believe these were mostly from consumer level components with obvious (possibly heavy) plating.

So you're probably north of that number but I can't guarantee that.

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Not sure what your bag of gold pins weighs. Would not sell them for scrap prices either. Unless you’re looking for quick cash.

As an example, a youtuber/refiner yielded 22.5gms of pure gold from 10lbs of very high quality gold pins somewhat similar to yours. Understand he has years of experience doing this. He also has all of the equipment to refine the gold from the pins and it took a week to do it. Did so with very dangerous acids for the uninitiated.

There are some on FB who will, for a price, refine your pins. There is a long wait. You’ll either get cash, or, gold, your call. The refiner will get either cash or gold. You work that out with them.

It takes a significant amount of weight in high quality gold pins to yield a little bit of gold.

The youtuber I mentioned earlier says he paid $1000 for those 10lbs of pins off of ebay. He sold some of the refined gold as 1gm gold sponges and some as jewelry he made from the gold he recovered from the pins. He cleared a nice profit.

Option 1 - sell as scrap
Option 2 - weigh and sell on ebay, provide milspec numbers
Option 3 - find someone who will refine for you

Bog o pins looks right nice.

RFIII

MilSpec is MilSpec - if US military or NASA request a product that’s MilSpec, unless that MilSpec for a particular item has been updated and approved. The MilSpec’s should remain the same.

A few companies providing MilSpec services as your 1970s ticket specifies. The following, unless updated for those pins, could be as follows.

Type I = 99.0% pure
Type II = 99.7% pure
Type III = 99.9% pure

Thickness - Grade

00 = 20microinches or .00002”
0 = 30microinches or .00003”
1 = 50microinches or .00005”
2 = 100microinches or .00010”
3 = 200microinches or .00020”
4 = 300microinches or .00030”
5 = 500microinches or .00050”
6 = 1500microinches or .00150”

Understand, this would not apply to your generic gold you see in PCs, laptops, cellphones, electronic games etc. The gold found on most modern electronics today is much much thinner than what’s listed for Grade 00 above.

Only what has been specified by US Gov’t contracts, NASA etc. for MilSpec get those grades. If they’re even relevant today.

And I haven’t even bothered to look up if that MilSpec has been superseded, changed or upgraded.

And notice I used used words like could or should. This is just an example of what one might have in their possession.

Hope you get a decent price for your pins no matter which route you go.

All of this is correct. It takes a metric ass-ton of pins, milspec or not, to yield anything that anyone cares about.
They are much nicer than pins you would find today, but they are still just pins. For context, a 10,000 pound shipment of mixed boards (vintage and not, all with pins) can yield about 5 ounces of pure gold. This depends on the mix and etc. And this is from an industrial refiner (from experience).
You can backyard refine the gold, but as previously mentioned, this takes a while and is dangerous as heck. You take the liability into your own hands.
I believe what you are asking is "how much is it worth if I sell it outright?" i.e. not scrap to Boardsort.
There is no real answer. It's worth what someone might want to speculate and what they think they might yield. Seems like all of the MilSpec info is there, just provide that to the buyer with a weight of the pins and let them decide.