Weird keyboard, are these key contacts gold?

I bought a broke down Mustang awhile back, and the owner gave me a bunch of old computer cables and stuff with it, including this keyboard. It was an older all rubber type, so I ran a knife down it and peeled the rubber off to find this inside. It didnt have any mylar sheets or anything inside, just a rubber outer shell/buttons and this.

So it's not worth as much as a finger card? Would I be best cutting this up, selling it as a "computer board" or what would it be?

You need an OMG IT"S GOLD™ bucket...I'll even sign it if you act now.

If it was me, I'd toss it in my bucket(The original of the above..)an save it for a special shipment to my buyer or to be toll refined once I had a good amount worthy of such. That's just me tho..YMMV.

Edit: I had a another couple thoughts..(Scary I know...owooo) You could get a nice collection and sell them via Ebay or wherever to home refiners. An..Nice board! Love seeing gold like that, heck I like any gold.

An seriously..get a bucket for gold boards like that. You could also check with your buyer to see if they'd pay more for it. Neva know!

Sirscrapalot - Getcha OMG IT"S GOLD™ 2014 bucket while they last! (dealends12312014,nopurchasenecessaryanifyoureadal lthisimsorry)

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

That thar be gold you're lookin' at. (Yep it's gold.)

A little lesson on why it's gold. Unlike the other available highly conductive materials, (copper, aluminum, silver and a few others) gold is does not oxidize therefore it's perfect for this type of keyboard (they call it soft touch keys) Every soft touch keyboard, phone, calculator, device will have a gold flashed board that is keyboards without mylars...Although it's not going to be valuable like a cell phone board or finger card....still a buck or so a pound.

Not every one will be gold plated.
I repair business phones and some are like this but others will have a black [carbon?] coating. The same model phone can have ether type. Some old Comdial phones have a keyboard that does not have any green coating on the tracings and all the tracings are gold plated, front and back. The tracings are thin and the gold plating is not very thick so in reality there is not as much gold as it appears.
Chris

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

You need an OMG IT"S GOLD™ bucket...I'll even sign it if you act now.

If it was me, I'd toss it in my bucket(The original of the above..)an save it for a special shipment to my buyer or to be toll refined once I had a good amount worthy of such. That's just me tho..YMMV.

Edit: I had a another couple thoughts..(Scary I know...owooo) You could get a nice collection and sell them via Ebay or wherever to home refiners. An..Nice board! Love seeing gold like that, heck I like any gold.

An seriously..get a bucket for gold boards like that. You could also check with your buyer to see if they'd pay more for it. Neva know!

Sirscrapalot - Getcha OMG IT"S GOLD™ 2014 bucket while they last! (dealends12312014,nopurchasenecessaryanifyoureadal lthisimsorry)

I do not have a regular buyer yet, havent sold any e scrap, have only taken apart a couple of desk top towers, a couple keyboards and stuff like that. Still trying to gather as much info as the best routes to go with things, it's overwhelming. Once I get it figured out, Im gonna start trying to get my hands on more of it. I have been taking apart car radios and that kind of stuff now, since some of the stuff in the Mustangs I part out doesnt work anyway, or even better, if I dont if it works.....it gets the axe now instead of shred.

One of the local yards that pays the lowest on pretty much everything (normal scrap) actually buys e scrap (whereas the higher paying yard in town doesnt buy it, go figure), they told me 2.25 on high grade board, 1.45 on mid grade and .11 on low grade a couple weeks go. I know most of the buyers on here pay more than that, but there is shipping to contend with, then again I do not know what the scrap yard considers high or mid grade, or if they expect it to have everything, heat sinks/cpu/ram etc, there is no telling with them.

Is it better to send stuff like this to a toll/home refiner vs sending to a board buyer? I know boards pretty much have a set rate that varies slightly, but this is kind of a one off compared to what I have seen listed for pricing, so I dont know what to do with it. I do Ebay a bit, but havent done anything like this, so I would have to research completed items, even then, Im not sure I would get a solid idea.

I will only get the gold bucket if you promise to John Hancock it (wait that didnt sound right....)

Also, anything I get out of this stuff will help, that was a long drive to Nashville for a car that was definitely not as advertised.

Originally Posted by olddude

As I stated in an earlier post I do some home refining. Sometimes these boards can be a bit**.

Stop scratching on the board!! There is not as much gold there as most think. PM me.

The scratch was the initial cut with the razor down the backside, was expecting a mylar or some kind of bunch of plastic inside, not this! lol PM incoming