Gold Fingers???

You need to figure that out yourself with what ever buyer you use. Depending on the price diference with them off and on will make up your mind. Personaly I use to only take them off of finger cards left them on everything else.

Originally Posted by Scrapcrazy

You'll find an abundance of information on that exact question multiple times here on the forum. Do a simple search on gold fingers and that will populate threads related to them. My opinion after reading many of the threads was it was not cost effective to remove them but like PTS said, it really depends on your buyer. If your buyer buys cut gold fingers at a fair enough price that merits removing them, then I would go ahead and do so. As long as you're using the right tool, removing them shouldn't take touch time or effort. Just make sure not to leave too much board on them.

I imagine if you remove fingers from motherboards you will change them to mid-grade at the most. You have just taken them from +- 3.50 lb down to +- .40-.50 lb.

It should not change the price on the mother boards, but it is worth the time and effort to take them off. On sound, video and the like they will generate about and extra 15-24% in revenue taking them off. That is depending on what you get for them.

I didn't originaly write this up but this might shed some light on the subject.

if it helps any, i have been keeping a running tally of what i have been finding, and i am averaging ~2.75% of fingers to pci weight. I look at it this way:

600lbs pci cards w/ fingers: (4.00*600) $2400

16.5 lbs gold fingers: ($72*16.5) $1188
583.5 lbs pci cards w/o fingers: ($3.10*583.5) $1808.85
total: $2996.85

difference: (net gain for taking fingers off): $596.85


16.5 lbs gold fingers * 2 grams Au/lb = 33 gr of Au * ~$50 /gr Au = $1650 if you self refine.

Barren, your posting about finger cards and I agree with you there, But the "big buyers" here on the forum say that if your "cherrypicking" off the main boards then your downgrading them.

I think the op was talking about gold fingers from ram and pci cards. I have seen some mobo's with gold fingers that small expansion cards get attatched to. As far as removing the gold finger from that type of board i wouldnt think that it would degrade the board since buyers are concerned more with the color of the boards and if they are small socket chinese or the large socket type. It also depends on the quantity that you have on hand and if its worth your time to do it. After looking at the above post by Barren it would seem its worth it if you have a large qty and/or are willing to wait to accumulate a large amt. If you need the $$$ now then turn in with fingers on, if not cut 'em off and wait till you get some nice #'s and then turn in.

Mech- If you have 2 mobos, one with a small finger and one without, and they are both small socket pinless type pentium chinese boards then should they be graded differently? The reason I ask is because i have a load of dells and a load of compaq mobos with that configuration and was wondering if they will be graded the same. The compaqs have the small finger and the dells do not but they are both pinless socket boards.

Yes I believe they would be the same

so then if i cut the finger off the compaqs it shouldnt reduce the quality of the board?

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Barren, your posting about finger cards and I agree with you there, But the "big buyers" here on the forum say that if your "cherrypicking" off the main boards then your downgrading them.

The buyers don't have a seperate listing for MOBO without fingers. I can tell you that Boardsort does not down grade for removing the fingers on the MOBO and I am going to guess that Ewasted dosen't either.

Originally Posted by BRASSCATCHER

:I think the op was talking about gold fingers from ram and pci cards. I have seen some mobo's with gold fingers that small expansion cards get attatched to. As far as removing the gold finger from that type of board i wouldnt think that it would degrade the board since buyers are concerned more with the color of the boards and if they are small socket chinese or the large socket type. It also depends on the quantity that you have on hand and if its worth your time to do it. After looking at the above post by Barren it would seem its worth it if you have a large qty and/or are willing to wait to accumulate a large amt. If you need the $$$ now then turn in with fingers on, if not cut 'em off and wait till you get some nice #'s and then turn in.

Compare the size of fingers from Ram, slot cards and mother boards. It dosen't take a rocket scientist to see which one is going to accumilate faster. What would you rather have 1lb of MOB or 1lb of fingers? at 70-80 per lb I think the answer is obvious. It dosen't matter to me if you send 1 oz. or 600 lbs my scale still weighs them with no problem.

I also don't leave jumpers on mother boards or finger cards, but that is just me.

I haven't talked to Boardsort in a while so I am guessing he is real busy and hasn't been on much, but since most here seem to go to Ewasted I feel it would be appropiate for him to chime in on this matter and give his oponion. If I were him I would tell you to leave them on the boards because it means a better revenue for him.

Look at the difference in prices for finger cards with fingers and cards without fingers and figure the percentage downgrade with the fingers removed and then tell me I'm wrong.

And the last 2 loads of fingers I ran came to roughly 2.6g per lb in yield of gold that is a 30% increase in the yield above the figure I quoted above so that would change the figure quoted to about $775 difference in price on extra revenue.

I do have a slight advantage over Boardsort and Ewasted because I don't have to send my fingers off to have the gold recovered, and I also don't have to pay a refiner thier percentage, this savings is the reason I am able to offer higher prices for them. I try to pass some of this back to the customer by offering them higher prices.

I'm not trying to beat a dead horse with this issue, just trying to show people where their revenue is going out of thier pocket's. Most here will spend all day working for a couple hundred dollars a day in steel, copper and aluminum. How many lbs of fingers can you remove in a day with a lot less lifting and work. I would rather be holding a lb of fingers than a lb of copper.