opportunity to buy escrap from local yard, need advice

i went to the yard down the street from my house today to drop off 580# of shred. They dont pay quite as much as a larger one 15mins down the road, but they're a small family owned yard and literally at the end of my street. Anyways while i was unloading I noticed a worker pull a computer out of the pile and put it to the side. After i got paid, i decided to walk around a bit and check out the shred pile, and I saw tons of electronics. I saw one computer case, completely stripped except for the motherboard still in it untouched lol. also saw another that was gutted except for dvd and floppy drive. I went back in and asked the guy if they sell stuff from the yard, and explained to him i was looking for electronics. I asked about computers, and he said they tear them apart there. He pretty much said anything else was fair game, and i can buy it at .20/lb.

I have some questions as to how to go about this:

1. The 2 gutted computer cases i saw, im not sure if hed sell them to me or not, but would these be worth trying to get? Also, any suggestions as to how I can convince him to sell me at least some of their computers?

2. What if I pulled a motherboard out of the case in the yard, do you think that would fly? or would they not allow me to break stuff down in the yard?

3. What kind of items besides computers should i look for to buy? im assuming dvd players and stereos, etc. wouldnt be worth it.

4. Is .20/lb a good price?

I had some more questions but cant remember them at the moment, but any advice i can get would be awesome! Thanks guys!

Look for higher end electronics if they won't let you buy the computers. Some stereo's can be nice. If they aren't opening them, you'll find low grade boards, usually a nice chunk of alum, an other assorted goodies. Same with stereo receivers. Some are very nice on the inside, gold plated inputs, etc. Medical equipment..all kind of electronics you could pull out an do well on at that price. Lest I think so.

Best bet would be to go, an analyze the piles. Heh. Look an look till you find something, an go from there. Or search here on various electronics, as a lot of us have posted break downs of things. That will help you determine if it's worth it or not for you. Sat/cable boxes, modems, routers, just off the top of my head.

Somethings you might be able to fix, or sell as parts. Others if you do a full break down an strip everything of value could see you profit to. An remember, you get to sell back to them all the shred, Copper, CBM's, Alum, etc. Or if you know a yard with better pricing...take that stuff to them.

Just my thoughts though. Take a gamble the first time, set a price limit, go in there an pluck away. If it works, great. If not, you know to move on. Couple of folks on here talk about buying from their yards, from cords, to dishwasher racks, etc. Sure there is more.

If your willing to use eBay, or other auction sites, or even CL, you could offer items for parts,etc.

Not everything that glitters an makes profit is in a computer. Sometimes you just gotta take a risk, bet on a number, an roll the dice.

Others smarter then me or with experience with buying from yards, will chime in I'm sure.

Sirscrapalot - To buy or not to buy, that is the question. - Not Shakespeare.

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

Look for higher end electronics if they won't let you buy the computers. Some stereo's can be nice. If they aren't opening them, you'll find low grade boards, usually a nice chunk of alum, an other assorted goodies. Same with stereo receivers. Some are very nice on the inside, gold plated inputs, etc. Medical equipment..all kind of electronics you could pull out an do well on at that price. Lest I think so.

Best bet would be to go, an analyze the piles. Heh. Look an look till you find something, an go from there. Or search here on various electronics, as a lot of us have posted break downs of things. That will help you determine if it's worth it or not for you. Sat/cable boxes, modems, routers, just off the top of my head.

Somethings you might be able to fix, or sell as parts. Others if you do a full break down an strip everything of value could see you profit to. An remember, you get to sell back to them all the shred, Copper, CBM's, Alum, etc. Or if you know a yard with better pricing...take that stuff to them.

Just my thoughts though. Take a gamble the first time, set a price limit, go in there an pluck away. If it works, great. If not, you know to move on. Couple of folks on here talk about buying from their yards, from cords, to dishwasher racks, etc. Sure there is more.

If your willing to use eBay, or other auction sites, or even CL, you could offer items for parts,etc.

Not everything that glitters an makes profit is in a computer. Sometimes you just gotta take a risk, bet on a number, an roll the dice.

Others smarter then me or with experience with buying from yards, will chime in I'm sure.

Sirscrapalot - To buy or not to buy, that is the question. - Not Shakespeare.

id be iffy about the stereos, just cause most are a low grade board and they are usually heavy. alot of the stuff i saw today was smashed up, but not stripped, so its easy to look and see whats inside. modems and stuff like that are what i was thinking of, lightweight with a high grade board. i wonder if it would be okay if i pulled a few valuable parts off of some things instead of buying the whole unit? i would still buy some complete stuff, i dont think theyd be happy if i tried to buy just a bunch of high grade boards and gold fingers lol. hoping to get some input from some members that do this regularly.

Best thing to do is just ask them about the parts thing.

I hear you on the stereos. Again, there is much info on breakdowns of various stuff, and it's according value. You can wait, for replies, or start digging in the archives.

I will bow out of your thread now. An let others more experienced then me help you.

Sirscrapalot - Moving on.

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

Best thing to do is just ask them about the parts thing.

I hear you on the stereos. Again, there is much info on breakdowns of various stuff, and it's according value. You can wait, for replies, or start digging in the archives.

I will bow out of your thread now. An let others more experienced then me help you.

Sirscrapalot - Moving on.

thanks sirs. ive skimmed some of those threads in the past, gonna go back and actually read them lol. one of these days im gonna write down and weigh something after breakdown to figure out the value myself.

All good my friend.


Good luck to ya, hope it works out for you. I know it does for some folks here.

Sirscrapalot - really moving on now.

If they already break down the computers, they are doing most of the work. Try to buy the boards they've taken out. I asked several yards and now get to buy all the computer boards from two of them. They always tear the computers down themselves because they want the copper wire and power supplies. It works out well for everyone.

My yard lets me buy anything out of shred for 26 cents/lb. They keep the pile relatively small, so t's pretty unusual for me to find enough items to make it worth my time. But I always have cash for that rare instance when everything comes together.

when buying from a scrap yard, you should be ready to bring cash. you will also need to advertise an arrangement that will be more profitable to the scrap yard than they already have now breaking down the units. be ready to eat some garbage too as you cant be super picky about everything you buy. offer a mixed price for them to make things easy and offer to load and unload materials yourself. this will make the deal desirable as it saves them time, puts money in their pockets and doesnt intefere with their normal operations. my 0.02 of experience

I would only pay .20# for complete computers any other electronics would not be worth it unless prices come back up. my .02

Happy, do you think lightweight modems or routers or things like that would be worth it?

Originally Posted by Mmarro89

when buying from a scrap yard, you should be ready to bring cash. you will also need to advertise an arrangement that will be more profitable to the scrap yard than they already have now breaking down the units. be ready to eat some garbage too as you cant be super picky about everything you buy. offer a mixed price for them to make things easy and offer to load and unload materials yourself. this will make the deal desirable as it saves them time, puts money in their pockets and doesnt intefere with their normal operations. my 0.02 of experience

I'm gonna ask more about the computers next time, like what they want out of them, if the keep the mbs, etc. I have to unload all my stuff anyway, it's a . Small yard but they're laid back he let me just walk around after I had cashed out.

I'm working through a very similar scenario with my yard (in very slow motion- no deals yet).

My yard will not let me cherrypick the goodies and take them home for $0.20/lb. They're smarter than that.

My yard has the opportunity to sell whole machines to a local refinery/aggregator for $0.25/lb. If you assume most machines (except the puny little Dells) run about 25 pounds, each machine is worth $6.25 to the yard. How much are they worth to *you*? I dunno. Given my small volumes and shipping costs I've found it difficult to get much more than $7 or $8 per computer as pure scrap- you can get undoubtedly get more if you re-sell certain components or refurbish the machines themselves, but that adds at least another couple layers of complexity and time to the operation (and, in my case, the machines at the yard have been sitting out in the open getting rained on, peed on (at least that what they smelled like) and dust blown in them since their arrival. I'm none too sure of their re-sale value.

Say you can get $8 per and in your situation you can buy them for $5 ($0.20 x 25). That nets you $3. How fast can you take one of these apart? How much is your time worth? If you can strip 5 machines an hour, then $15/hr doesn't sound bad at all. If you have all the time in the world, then $3 is $3 and who cares?

Lastly, be careful what you buy from the yard- out of 10 machines I examined one had the motherboard and processor removed and one was completely gutted and re-filled with power supplies! As Erewen notes above, take your time and pick and chose what you want to take home!

good luck, and cheers,
tbg

Thanks for advice guys. I still haven't had a chance to go back and get some stuff but I might go Friday. been busy remodeling the kitchen. if anyone thinks of some other things I should look for when I go, let me know. Thanks!

I would echo a lot of what everyone has said here and I'll add my experience. I had been buying pcs one-off from my local yard (sounds similar to yours - close, small, family owned.) Then one day I stroll in and there is a pallet of desktops, some much older, sitting at the front. Turns out they sell to a big fish by the pallet, but only 8 pallets at a time. I threw out a number for the bunch with the same $8ish expectation in mind that someone else mentioned but they said no, they have a buyer. For 2 weeks the pallet sat there and finally we made a deal, albeit for more than what I initially offered. But that was okay because now every time I go in the owner is asking me if I want to buy another pallet. Don't know what happened to the original buyer, but by making that first deal I'm in the driver seat. The yard even acknowledged that prices had gone down and didn't expect as much for the computers now. So my experience says make a purchase or a few and develop a reputation as a buyer and then you'll be in the driver's seat. You may just have to pay a little more or eat some crap stuff initially, but it won't take long for them to be asking you to buy. My .02. I wish you luck!

Originally Posted by alekwb

I would echo a lot of what everyone has said here and I'll add my experience. I had been buying pcs one-off from my local yard (sounds similar to yours - close, small, family owned.) Then one day I stroll in and there is a pallet of desktops, some much older, sitting at the front. Turns out they sell to a big fish by the pallet, but only 8 pallets at a time. I threw out a number for the bunch with the same $8ish expectation in mind that someone else mentioned but they said no, they have a buyer. For 2 weeks the pallet sat there and finally we made a deal, albeit for more than what I initially offered. But that was okay because now every time I go in the owner is asking me if I want to buy another pallet. Don't know what happened to the original buyer, but by making that first deal I'm in the driver seat. The yard even acknowledged that prices had gone down and didn't expect as much for the computers now. So my experience says make a purchase or a few and develop a reputation as a buyer and then you'll be in the driver's seat. You may just have to pay a little more or eat some crap stuff initially, but it won't take long for them to be asking you to buy. My .02. I wish you luck!

chances are there was no original buyer. thats usually junkyard speak for "ill hang the bait out a little longer until you get hungrier and offer a higher price." but now youre in a good position. junkyards like consistency and would need a substantially better offer to break off the deal they already have with you. keep up the good work

Originally Posted by erewen

My yard lets me buy anything out of shred for 26 cents/lb. They keep the pile relatively small, so t's pretty unusual for me to find enough items to make it worth my time. But I always have cash for that rare instance when everything comes together.

Is $.26 worth your time though? Thats kinda expensive.

Originally Posted by CCRcameron

Is $.26 worth your time though? Thats kinda expensive.

I've only made one large purchase, about 300 lbs of gold finger and telecom boards. Most of them were loose and scattered about the pile, but yeah, that was worth my time