having fun with the auction stuff

won two large lots of phones. one is 30+ office phones, another one is probably 25 home phones (all wireless), plus a laptop. Curious about how I come out with these, won a few other small lots to give it a shot.



I really enjoyed taking apart a small lot of office phones I got late last year. simple to tear down, usually has some nice boards in it.

picked up some more pewter stuff too

Resell them. Making $2.50 after stripping 3/4 phones is wasting your time given that you had to buy them and now have to ship them. Some of those business phones are worth a lot of money. Even the old ones are normally worth $50 for a lot of 5. Scrapping should always be your last resort.

Originally Posted by Jeremiah

Resell them. Making $2.50 after stripping 3/4 phones is wasting your time given that you had to buy them and now have to ship them. Some of those business phones are worth a lot of money. Even the old ones are normally worth $50 for a lot of 5. Scrapping should always be your last resort.

I'll check into it. I don't really want to allocate the time to list and ship, since this is secondary to my primary career. I tear down while watching sports, and can do a phone in about 4-5 minutes.
Don't have a landline to test with either really...

Can be some nice goodies in them phones. If you do end up scrapping them, be sure to include some pictures! Just remember not all phones are created equal. I've had cordless ones with gold on the board, an ones without. An I hear you on the shipping, an listing. Not everyone has the time, or in my case the patience to deal with ebay, etc. Tho Jeremiah does have a good point, them business phones can fetch a decent penny from what I hear.

Good score LP, an good luck when you get around to popping them open!

Sirscrapalot - E.T. Phone..home. - E.T.

All you should need to test these is a switch, which can be purchased for fairly cheap on ebay, or another outlet. I would always recommend testing them before selling. A quick check on ebay will let you know if they are worth selling or not. Nortel, Avaya, Cisco are a few that usually sell for premium, depending on the model. Your profit will be 10x more if you resell as opposed to scrapping (in most cases)

picking up the larger lot tomorrow. I'll get a pic before I tear down... after I check to see if any are worth selling.

can anyone post links to what will work? I don't mind paying a little bit for something that will hold up.

I saw that monoprice has one for $60 that will do a bunch of things. I gotta order some other stuff from there as well.

But if anybody has any experience or recommendations, I would be all ears.


Almost all of the phones are Nortel, with a few Toshiba's thrown in. I didn't go through them 100%.