Some Nice Ceramic CPU's Pictures

I sold a bunch of boxes ceramic CPU's that finally got full by category. I didn't take any pictures (I should have because it was real nice load!), but here are some of the nice ones and boxes I am still filling up.

Gold cap and gold legs

Those Proms go for $250/lb right?

Originally Posted by sledge

Those Proms go for $250/lb right?

That would be nice!! There is not much weight there, but pound for pound those in the fourth picture are supposed to be the highest gold yielding, I'm pretty sure.

From my understanding the Pentium pro has .30 grams of gold content. Maybe .35 grams of gold. Say it takes 3 pros to equal a gram of gold. Weigh 3 pros and see the weight or throw pros on the scale until you get a pound of material.

Now take some mixed proms and throw them on the scale until you get a pound. Now set down and do some measuring and you will see that the mixed proms have a greater value than the pros pound per pound. Those proms sell for $250.00 a pound on ebay.

People have to understand what a socket pulled chip is and a desoldered chip is. A socket pulled chip is one pulled from a ic socket without solder. It is a clean chip with the gold plating in place. A desoldered chip is one that you take a heat gun to desolder it or cut it from the board. When anything has been soldered to the board and you desolder it some of the gold stays behind and is lost.

Socket pulled no solder on the leads pins or legs whatever you want to call them will bring a premium if there is no solder on them.
Chips that are attached and desoldered from a board don't bring that much due to lose of gold and the tin solder.

The size of chip or item is a big factor in the price paid. The smaller a item is and the more it takes to make a pound the more precious metals to be recovered.

I hope people understand what I am saying.

When dealing in this type of business everyone involved needs to leave a little something on the table for the next person to make a little money. People cant lick all the cream out of the bowl and leave sour milk for the ones behind them.

I want to put up a buyers ad in the buyers forum but I would be a selective in what I would buy. I would rather meet sellers in person versus mail in sellers.

Sweeeet! Mike

The MAY sell for $250/lb on ebay to someone who is delusional and has a case of "gold-fever"
I will crunch the numbers. On 1 Lb of these you are looking at between 2-4g per 1 lb.
Spot price for 1 gram of gold as of today is $42.96
So if you are on the low end- 1 lb will net you $85.92 if you recover 2g
3g = $128.88
4g = $171.84

So you see- if someone pays $250/lb for these.. they are a lollipop.


Btw: It takes 5.33 Pent Pro's to make a lb. They sit at 3.0 oz each.

And just FYI.. we know what a de-soldered vs pulled chip is. We are smarter than you are giving us credit for!

Also the smaller or larger chip size is irrelevant in what it pays. It's the content of recoverable material that matters. That is why a smaller chip 386 or 486 pays more than an Pentium Pro per lb. More bang for the buck.. more gold in the chip per lb.

Originally Posted by eastky

How many pins are on the pro chip?

Ok, I'll bite. It appears there's about 387 pins on a Pentium Pro.

Originally Posted by eastky

I don't have one because I didn't buy into the 1 gram per chip hype.

Not sure I understand. Are you throwing them away since they don't have a full gram of gold in each?

Originally Posted by eastky

How many pins are on the pro chip? I don't have one because I didn't buy into the 1 gram per chip hype.

It isn't just the pins or the gold cap that contains gold. If ceramic chips are crushed.. there is gold INSIDE the chip.. a wafer if you will.
It isn't just what you can see from the outside.. sometimes it is also what is on the inside that matters!

This is what is inside a Pentium Pro:
http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger...ipart67085.jpg

Originally Posted by eastky

That just goes to tell how ill informed you are.

sledge has 2437 in this forum, and you have 13... HALF of which are in this thread alone. Settle down and have a conversation, not an argument. You have no weight to throw around in this forum.

Originally Posted by eastky

That just goes to tell how ill informed you are. There isn't any gold inside the ceramic. Take the gold plated cap off and you will have gold under the silicon die that is soldered with gold solder to hold the chip in place. A Pentium pro has about 1/3rd of a gram of gold in it.

You cant compare a 386 or 486 cpu to the Pentium pro weight or size wise because the 386 and 486 had a higher gold content in the chips to begin with.

People may not believe it but in collecting gold plated things the lighter and smaller the item the higher the gold content.

I find you amusing! I show you proof of what is inside a chip, and yet I am "ill informed?"
Since you have never held one in your hand, by your own admission, and apparently know little to nothing about this subject. I find my time better spent elsewhere.
Providing facts to you is apparently a waste of time!

Originally Posted by HiTechMike

Wow, that digressed rather quickly...

Just a bit. Nice pics by the way.

What surprises me is that there were no goats involved.

Prior to the development of much smaller processes (fiber embedded dies) dies were attached to the ceramic substrate via gold wire (pictured) some higher voltage or emf sensitive ICs were attached using platinum wire. Anyways, lithography of that time used gold as a layer in the process. The die would start as a semi conductor with a gold layer that would be etched into traces. A photosensitive chemical would then be flashed in pattern to create transistors and finally another coating would be applied to create the drains for the transistors. Even today a cpu die is probably worth multi thousands of dollars per lb...even though they are now fractions of grams each. P.S. nice dang haul there!