Is paying .47 lb too much for old white computers and servers

in the last year the buy price of computer scrap has gone from, I will pay you to haul it off to the skys the limit it seems. the same thing happened in the catolytic converter bis. the internet is a great thing but it is the cause of this phenom.

I know people who were paying over $100 per converter (till they ran out of money) because they read on the net that cats were selling for over $200. What they didn't read were that those $200+ cats were only found on Jaguares, BMWs and Mercadies.

the very same thing is now happening in our business. (theres gold in them thar computers) only gold has this effect on people. gold feaver is real. many (normaly logical people) actually think there are ounces of gold in a $500 computer. we have seen here where people actually took fingers and chips to jewelers and tried to sell them.

the reality is, that volume, and big volume is the only way to make a living scrapping computers .

the trend, like cats, is that the cost of aquisition is rocketing up wards while the wholesale sell price is dropping just as fast.

most, just like cats, will eventualy fall by the wayside when they figgure out how much work is involved and they are actually loseing money. maybe this business will survive on a small to middle scale and maybe it won't.

the only way to survive is study this forum and work and buy smarter then all those out there who don't. my .02

go to the buyer section, get a buyer. (Iuse ewasted) get a price. figure out your margin. add fuel, transportation, and labor cost.

.25 a lb seems to be the norm, you keep creeping up the price you pay and there goes the profit. The scrap value is not really going up, just what your paying.

i wouldnt pay by the pound, i pay a fixed price for complete machines, if parts are missing the price gets docked, if ram or cpus missing price gets docked heavily

i have some 60 pound complete servers id sell to you at that price all day long, your going to get screwed at some point paying that much per pound

LOL Ive got around 400,000 lbs how many semi loads ya want @ .47 I need to retire again any way.

some reality: at .47 that would make my 300 lb IBMs worth about $150 each, most of those are running about $ 100 in scrap value sooooo.
a u1 or u2 yealds about $35.

all yeald a h*** of a lot of work.

I was paying up to .37 cents a lb for complete towers and still making money but since the price of the scrap casings has went down I now pay .30/lb for complete towers (I'm in the buyers thread if anyone wants to check it out).....

I'm just not smart enough to buy at .47 and make money. if you can open them andpick that maybe ok don't know never been able to do that.

Originally Posted by jghilino

I am at $5 each for complete desktops, steel is so low right now. After looking at my labor costs and overhead i wouldnt offer more than that unless its a server or the seller shows proof its worth more like with a gold cap cpu. And also you have the right to inspect a lot before you accept it. I always take the covers off or make the buyer take them off so i can see that every thing is there and so i know exactly what im getting. If i see somthing special i will pay more. Ive bought lots where somone removed the cpus and put the heatsinks back on so its always best to inspect before flipping the dollar bills for the seller.

Today local guy came by i bought 10 pounds of ram and a mix of gold top ceramic and mixed ceramix for 1/2 of the going rate. Gave him IOU for the $20 that my wallet came up short on what i owed him so he will have to bring another load in the future.

I must be making money my wallet has never come up short (LOL)