Stereo/audio inputs...Gold plated?

They are gold plated most likely, although I have seen anodized versions that were trying really hard to pretend to be high end gold plated connectors.

As a matter of fact, I have even seen black rhodium or what they call black rhodium connectors.

Any of the high end electronics that were made prior to 2002 are going to have more gold plating than anything after. The price of gold jumped then leaded in 2002, so industry responding by finding more efficient ways to play less gold and get the same benefit. The same goes for car audio equipment. Anything before 1998 usually has more gold associated with it, in car audio components.

I have 4 55 gallon buckets of those particular type of connectors, the yield is okay but on the low end, you have to figure they have far less surface space per base material than something like gold plated pins have. A lot of times the cheaper ones have a tin base which makes them a nightmare to run if you are not aware before, it creates insoluble tin oxide in AR solutions. They are not as clean to run as other types of connecters but should be well worth your time and effort to scrap along with all the other gold connectors. If you look at ebay auctions for gold recovery material, you often times see mixed lot of gold plated connectors that have this type of material in them. You might be better served mixing these up with other types of misc connecters so that you get a better overall price for your lot.

Scott

But first, have you exhausted all attempts with the "advanced search" feature?

nice finish on the floor there btw, did you pay extra for that ?

For the most part, yes. The plating on high end audio and stereo car and home equipment changed in 1998, I know this because I owned a car stereo, alarm, pager, cellular phone store. I was contributing to IASCA at the time, and competing. We used to install this big bulky, gold plated fuse boxes and junctions that were so heavy gold plated they felt in the hand like heavy butter, only way I can think to describe it. I used to have hundreds of them for sale in the store for car audio enthusiasts to purchase. Then everything started to get really shiny right around 1998, the magazines were all reporting the difference in gold plating, etc.

In 2002 I was working as a wan administrator in the computer field. I was at the CES show in Vegas, there was an entire class dedicated to the new gold plating technology that was being used because of gold prices jumping. Matter of fact, a much better gauge on when exactly gold plating changed would be to look at when gold prices jumped. Each time industry responded by using more efficient techniques to apply gold plating in smaller and smaller amounts.

I purchase gold plated connector pins from a manufacturer in silicon valley on a regular basis. I get a low yield compared to other pins I have run, yet they have never been used, are clean with no solder, you couldn't ask for better material to run as a refiner. However, the yields just simply are not nearly as good as older pins, because of the gold plating. So if you want to make a premium on your pins if you sell them on ebay, try to keep separate the pins from computers older than 2002, and make note of it in your ebay auction. But be honest about it. A good refiner is always going to be able to tell by yield data, if they were lied to about the date on the pins.

Any extra work you put into your material like that, will bring more money on an ebay auction. It's a type of value added service. One of the local guys that sells scrap to me, separates all his material for me, as best as he can. He knows I am going to pay him more if he does his job right and I can consistently count on his sorting. It saves me time, effort and money in the long run. He searches out the better material, its' a win win situation for both of us.

Scott

Did you check those with a magnet, they look like gold plated brass to me. The most ive sold 1 pound of gold plated metal for was $300. And it was tiny pins that were 100% covered. Very large amount of surface area per pound. Those look like they would bring around $70 pound.