Cracking into gold connectors?

Anybody have any tips into getting into these things? I know there isnt alot in there but hey every little bit adds up right?

there are buyers on here that will buy the connectors whole, FWIW.

That being said, the IDE connectors are relatively easy to tear apart, there are clips holding it together. There is no solder to connect the pins to the ribbon cable.

Other ones have solder attached to the pins, making them much harder to tear apart, and not worth tearing apart IMO. For the amount of money they'd give me for the connector, I'd rather just give it to them then make <$5/hr tearing it apart.

A lot of work for a little money not worth it.

You could tear them down to the point of exposing the tops of the pins that bite into the ribbon cable. If you see ones with bright gold pins....save those and pull the pins yourself. If the pins are silver colored, sell them as is. You can probably get a better price, because you have done about 1/3 of the work involved in getting the pins out.

Just wondering about eathernet and telephone plugs. Would anyone be interested in them. They have gold pins in them as well.

I recycle a lot of electronics in Rochester, NY. Here's my take on gold connectors:
Separate your gold connectors while you are breaking down equipment & scrapping wire.
This would include ethernet connectors, phone plugs, video connectors.
We separate the ribbon cable connectors here as they typically go for a little less. (Supposedly a little lower gold content.)
Last I looked, the gold connectors were going for around 75 cents per pound.
It doesn't take much to throw them in a separate bucket.