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Learn to properly Sort, Sell, and Profit from your electronic scrap material.
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:31 am 

Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:00 am
Posts: 197
That strange twitch struck the hand of Auctionman again this week. At first, the eye, brain, hand connections performed fairly well, with the brain often blocking eye input from translating to hand twitch output, or at least limiting the financial damage possible by overbidding. In the early bids, three lots, totaling approximately 400 pounds of bare bright copper cable were available. Now a quick calculation showed that based on local prices, and no time consuming preparation required, the possibility of a quick profit could be had.
That illusion of prosperity soon ended. My hand fell slack when the bid reached 3/4 the estimated scrap value, for three reasons: 1st, the material cannot be picked up and delivered to market until next week, and the currently high scrap price conceivably could fall drastically over the holiday weekend; with the addition of a buyers premium of 15% plus a 3% fee for use of a card payment, that added about $150 to the price, leaving only about $100-150 to cover expenses and profit, if the price remained stable; 3rd, in my state there is a five business day hold on payment for copper sales. Had one been able to pick up the material and deliver it straight to the scrap yard immediately, perhaps the risk profit ratio would have been acceptable to me.
But not all losers are never winners. I managed to snag three pallet lots of electronic scrap at give away prices (basically translate as at across the scale scrap steel prices) I usually manage to get an in-person preview of these lots rather than relying on the posted pictures. https://media.sandhills.com/img.axd?id= ... ApFzm6u8vc

https://media.sandhills.com/img.axd?id= ... WtWDmwEKlR

https://media.sandhills.com/img.axd?id= ... yccNhU5EAN


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:57 pm 
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Location: Low DOS
Ohh! Second photo that’s either security or production.
Top recorder style has good resale values.

That whole pallet looks like some repair options.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 8:32 pm 

Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:00 am
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That photo got cropped. Here is a better shot of the lot.
https://media.sandhills.com/img.axd?id= ... fVW2tcsW21


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 8:45 pm 

Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:00 am
Posts: 197
Had to leave early in the online auction, so submitted a much larger bid than my usual cutoff point on this lot: lost out by $2.50 over my max prebid.
https://media.sandhills.com/img.axd?id= ... 1VmK7a1ZYT

another view of one of the won lots
https://media.sandhills.com/img.axd?id= ... OoWdbht9HJ


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:11 am 

Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:00 am
Posts: 197
Not much happening in Palletview in Auctionland lately. Seems like every body has descended on the concrete beaches for a working vacation. A year ago, I could have bought dozens of laptops for a couple bucks each, but didn't bother. Then Covid emptied the stores of new electronics, and suddenly those 2 dollar Heavy duty commercial and field engineer laptops were bringing $50 and up each, in lots of ten.
Fortunately for a born scrapper, the homecoming queen isn't the only lady at the dance, so even I still get an occasional whirl around the auction floor and take home a prize or surprise.
Here is a tip for those of you suffering from e-withdrawal pangs. If electronics are in short supply in your price range, consider lots of warehouse discarded lighting. A lot of companies are replacing old fluorescent fixtures with new LED lighting, and a lot of the huge warehouse incandescent/mercury vapor/ 150 watt to 400 watt with two or three foot aluminum reflectors are coming in the market. (Caution: some of these units have bulbs or tubes containing mercury compounds, which you will have to figure out how to dispose of) Often, there is no interest in the lot, and you may get a bargain, provided the starting bid is low enough. On a recent lot, each light assembly contained around ten pounds of cast/sheet aluminum, 3 pounds of #2 copper wire in the transformer, approximately 20 pounds of steel and about another $1 worth of incidentals, plus hanger bolts and hooks. Gross return, on a $25 dollar bid, with approximately three hours total transport time (including to market sale) and five hours breakdown/preparation ) slightly over $400.
You are welcome. I really wanted to take some time to go rock collecting after the next auction, rather than working up another batch or warehouse lights (most of the lot I bought were defective or damaged, so scrapping was logical rather than resale)


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:50 pm 
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Location: Low DOS
For those in the south west one of my favourites is nellisauction dot com.
(I’m giving away a source, please don’t take my used vending machines, lol).

Over the last year they’ve had a massive shift from returns lots and abandoned shipments to commercial closures. They have a broken propane forklift up right now too! As meowpher point out: look in the uncommon places.
And look through my what’s inside it photo posts.
As business close they are offering some weirdness in pallets at times. I bought a mixed pallet a few months ago and had a friend bring it with them cross country for me. (Along with two vending machines).
If it plugs in or turns on, it’s got stuff in it worthwhile.

And those vending machines? Anything left inside is the buyer’s property now. Cash. Soda. I found one that had a whole stash of Budweiser in one feed that didn’t have any markings. Think that must have been a rowdy post business day company. Or Apple. Lol. But I’ve also picked up peal tab soda cans. And cash.
I have a disk core pick. I bought one from lockpicking lawyer’s site. Check him out on YouTube.
A disk pick has the added benefit of of also opening up all sort of electronic cases. Like locked servers and commercial controller panels.

Nifty little tools. They cost quite a bit and take a lot of practice. But once you get the hang of it you’ll be selling those server cases (which fetch a lot of cash) rather than drilling out the lock or grinding open the case.
As any server scrapper will tell you it’s not that uncommon to find all sorts of stuff in large locked minicomputers beyond the computer. I’ve found cash, paper work and contracts, a will (I returned that to the named party’s family after some search work) and a wedding band (didn’t ask on that one!).

What used to take half an hour plus and a dozen expensive bits now takes under 5 minutes.

Take a look over at Nellis and lockpicking lawyer. Have fun. And stay safe.

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