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Unknown Condition Computers

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  1. #1
    Barta4 started this thread.
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    Unknown Condition Computers

    I was looking around our NC State Surplus site and saw where a pallet of 180 laptops of unknown condition, possibly no HDs or memory, sold for $3,200. Plus, a pallet of 80 towers, of unknown condition, sold for $557. That's $17 per laptop and $27 per tower. What do you think they are doing with these "unknown condition" computers? Can they be making their money back scrapping or reselling?



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    brandon's Avatar
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    No money to be made there in scrap.
    My fortune cookie said:
    You discover treasures where others see nothing unusual.

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    While I can't be sure of the buyer's intention, most likely they were bought to either refurbish or part out. Or maybe both. But you can be sure they weren't bought out by a scrapper.

    Edit:
    I didn't catch this right away:
    Plus, a pallet of 80 towers, of unknown condition, sold for $557.
    My math on that works out to just under 7.00 per tower. That could have been a scrapper there.
    Last edited by billygoat; 12-12-2012 at 04:39 PM.

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    I watch the auctions around here quite frequently and from what I've seen is they are either being refurbished or sent over seas.

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    Barta4 started this thread.
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    Quote Originally Posted by billygoat View Post
    While I can't be sure of the buyer's intention, most likely they were bought to either refurbish or part out. Or maybe both. But you can be sure they weren't bought out by a scrapper.

    Edit:
    I didn't catch this right away:


    My math on that works out to just under 7.00 per tower. That could have been a scrapper there.
    You're right, I forgot to take my shoes and socks off when attempting long division. $7 is a little closer to reasonable.

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    I have personally been in contact with one of the buyers on Govdeals that paid a lot of money for a medium sized lot of towers.

    As it turned out we were picking up our purchases at the same time in the same complex.

    We had a bit to wait for the guy with the paperwork and sat down and visited for a bit.

    It turned out that he was an international buyer. What we consider outdated (Pentium 4's in this case) was still very relevant equipment in the country he was dealing with (Cuba).

    These computers were not going to be going on the internet and were more or less being used as work stations in some kind of office.

    Being he had a valid guaranteed buyer, his price point could be higher. These computers he paid $13.00 each for complete and he had the sold for $65.00 US.

    On that lot of 145 towers he made $52.00 on each tower. As it turned out he had also bought a huge lot of CRT monitors in another location as well as other computer hardware that he knew he had sold.

    He puts it all in a shipping container and sends it to Mexico and from there it goes on to Cuba.

    He was a nice guy and was pretty confident in his dealing with these folks out of the country.

    He did not seem too worried that a guy in central Iowa would try to steal his business model...LOL

    I got the feeling that he did this on a large enough scale to make it well worth his while.
    There may a million better places to live than Iowa, but none of them are home!

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  10. #7
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    Buying Specialty Escrap of all kinds, resale grade computer parts

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    I ship parts to puerto rico all the time, the thing is they dont have scrap yards there to pick parts from, so they have to order it thru the mainland. Older computers like p4's are still in high demand in some places in the world, i agree with that 100%.
    I buy and sell all types of scrap and escrap. I buy specialty and hard to sell escrap. I buy resale items. PM me or contact me at jghilino@hotmail.com
    I AM ACTIVELY BUYING ESCRAP OF ALL TYPES. BOARDS, RAM, CPUS AND MUCH MORE

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