Gold Connectors - Worth The Time

Gold Connectors have dropped over the past year, and I'm no longer taking the time to trim all of them. I ship at about 29 cents a pound, so best case scenario is 86 cents a pound for the connectors. I think I was getting 75 cents a pound for #2 insulated wire at my scrapyard. In my situation, I'm finding it no longer worth my time in several situations. I can see it's a better option to clip the ends if you have a local buyer.

After thinking about it, these are the criteria I'm thinking of:
I will save ribbon cable connectors, since there is a buyer paying a higher rate, and within driving distance.

I will save the heavy SCSI, parallel printing, and maybe even monitor connectors. Anything that is heavier might be worth a quick snip.



Cat5, RJ45, SATA, Sata Power connector, USB, and other lighter weight connectors are just going in with my #2 copper insulated.

There's a part of me that's reluctant every time I throw a SATA cable in without clipping the ends, but I do think it's for the best. I'd love to hear other's opinions about the gold ends. Are you clipping, and are you getting any better differences than a few cents a pound??

I here you, got $2.15 lb for them in 2012 then $1.65 and $1.10 in 2013 now they are $.95. After shipping costs not worth much any more... I still cut them and have about 15 lbs in a box. And I wish my shipping was that cheep around $.80 - $.85 for me from AZ to OHIO

The only reason I cut the ends off was because my yard said I had to. Now they say it's not necessary so I leave them on. I've got bigger fish to fry and 80 pounds of gold pin connector ends I need to get rid of.

is it a space issue cause you could just save them aside i just toss them in a Gaylord but you could do like i did for a friend and use a fridge box for less space and will take a bit to fill that way and can ship in something different when time comes cause before that he was just using a blow up pool outside and tossing them in

If you ship your boards you can just but the gold ends in to fill in the empty spaces. The yard I sell my #2 insulated to said they don't want them so I clip them off and sell them to my local buyer.

Originally Posted by hobo finds

I here you, got $2.15 lb for them in 2012 then $1.65 and $1.10 in 2013 now they are $.95. After shipping costs not worth much any more... I still cut them and have about 15 lbs in a box. And I wish my shipping was that cheep around $.80 - $.85 for me from AZ to OHIO

Lol I remember the good old days of $1.65/lb It was worth it back then to cut and save them... now your looking at half that price .

Now i just leave them on the cable and its worth $.85/lb as low grade wire at my yard so to cut them off i would be losing money and time.

So I kguess few are looking for the price of gold to come back, or were recovery rates too low?

Just when I thought I was confident with my approach, things changed. I'm now going to be making regular trips close to Mentor anyway, so shipping cost goes to virtually zero. And now my yard has introduced #3 insulated at .65 / pound. I think I'll just throw the gold connector wires in a bucket for the kids to trim the ends when I need to keep them out of trouble.