Computer parts ground ZERO

I remember my first day I sold scrap I made good money enough to get the bug . But for sure now I could of cleaned the copper , and brass items , for less of a down graded price . goes the same for Aluminum . Now well I have the scrap gift of making money from the street .

I had a need to go to NJ for a part drop off ( a Hydraulic cylinder for a trash truck )
To really turn that day productive and help pass some time as they fixed trash truck part , I took copper brass aluminum Mix
and some computers parts @ 41 pounds to a local scrap yard .
Over all I hit $288.00 for my batches of - copper at $2.90 - bass $1.80 - Al .60 - mix .8 per # those items turned out very well as yard was not picky at all as to how clean items were . Really like brass was 10% steel with nuts and such and just took it as brass . same for AL and CU .

Well the computer parts Hmm ok the yard guy said .75 then 1.00 then he went $1.50 per pound that would of been MB CPU MEM Cards as a mix .
I went to a higher up manager and was told OK i'll pay $6 per pound for Mem CPU's and .75 for boards

My lack of experience caused me to think MEM CPU's @ $6 lets doit

2 pounds of MEM CPU did not light any fires so I walked away with $41 and change
Then I complained that the original price of $1.50 would of been better and was told well that other yard worker made a mistake.

SO oooo I see live and learn
My question what would of been a fair general price if I sold what I did.
Wile $1.50 seems low , and yet under the circumstances I wish I took that rate.
I realize there are ways to fine tune what I sell but some times a bulk price is good to know to prevent what did happen this time .

Any way my computer parts were all out of XP computers and one Pent Pro CPU and board
I have plenty more & don't want to make that mistake once more.
My gut feeling is $125 for that batch of 41 pounds or like $3 per pound for the mix of items would of been fair .

Ship Ewaste to one of the buyers on the forum they pay better than any yard

The two pounds of memory and the one pentium pro cpu ALONE were worth more than $40. You would be much better off selling to a buyer on this forum. Many have their prices clearly posted for reference...

memory runs $13 a pound here in the buyer section...cpus can run $5-100/pound depending on what type....finger boards are $3 something a pound...so yep spend the time on here to know before getting RIPPED off again locally...

Sounds like 3.50 to 4$ per pound for a mixed batch or I should of walked

Why settle for a 'mixed batch' price? If I would do that at one of my local e-scrap yards I would expect to be paid what the lowest scrap in my mix is. In your scenario that would have likely been a P4 motherboard. I haven't checked local prices recently, but seeing that P4 mobo's are bringing $1.90 a pound currently in the buyers section, $1.50 a pound local was a reasonable price (in my opinion.)

But why settle for a 'mixed batch'? Sort that stuff yourself and get your money out of it. I think in the past you have mentioned an unwillingness to ship, but that doesn't mean you can't research those places prices and try to find someone close to those prices local. If you can't it doesn't take much space to save memory and cpu's until you do find someone to pay decent.

How can you have 1,400+ posts on here and not realize what prices you should have gotten? Not trying to be mean, just shocked is all. Hope you look through the buyer section so you don't get ripped off again. I printed out ewaste's price sheet and keep it by my work bench.

everytime I see posts like this it does 3 things. 1. makes me cry a bit inside because in this information age with every questions at your finger tips waiting to be answered, people still don't access it.
2. makes me jittery not being able to expand fast enough to keep up with demand and 3. which is part of 2 being able to be large enough to help all these souls who want to make me even more money the room I need to buy these mixed items as people call it for $4lb cause the only thing I mix as scrap is paper plastic glass and trash lol

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Originally Posted by jiffy117

How can you have 1,400+ posts on here and not realize what prices you should have gotten? Not trying to be mean, just shocked is all. Hope you look through the buyer section so you don't get ripped off again. I printed out ewaste's price sheet and keep it by my work bench.

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For better or worse I seem to function as a hands on experience type of guy , With a touch of lets get on with it .
SO yeah I took some stuff in a trash pail for my official learning curve .
BUT when I tighten up and know it , I know it like riding a bike .
Clearly my mind set was still in the realm of Copper Brass and so on --- so when I heard $6 # for Mem and CPU -- My head was lets go , Once it hit the scale I knew the deal was bad
but I was on a roll with $245 from Copper Brass - other -
So I also just wanted to blow and get back to what ( job situation ) had put me into this new town .
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What was interesting as always - no matter where one goes scrap yards can be found & as long as you got product your a customer .

Sell them your bigger boards and ship the memory and CPU's to a buyer in a flat rate box. Probably get $100. in a $5.00 flat rate box from the P.O.

not a single ewaste price that he quoted you is even CLOSE even after shipping costs...buyers here beat it hands down...I know it takes one of those experiences to realize how badly someone "gave" it to you...but it only takes once....The buyers forum will save you and MAKE you A TON of money for many items....really heavy stuff like power supplies...well whatever the yard gives you OR at least if they are hitting you with shred pricing, clip the wires off and then sell...cd drives, take the board out..hard drives...break them down and ship the boards out for $9-10/lb. I am ASSUMING you don't have anywhere remotely close that you can take ewaste...if you do, save what makes sense and make a trip like I do about once a month (for all my low grade boards, cd drives w/o boards, li-ion batt and LCD screens). Takes about 40 min to get there, but even counting my time at $50/hr, I make more then if I throw that in shred since my local yards don't buy or do ANY ewaste.

And depending on the space you have and competition, YOU could start buying...start small with higher end stuff....arbitrage it out...ie buy for $1 and sell for $2.50....make $1 even after shipping. 100% profit after 3-4 days DOESN'T suck...even if you start with $100. Doubling that every week would allow you to get more and more after a bit and ship larger quantities (which will lower the cost of shipping too). Just a thought.

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Originally Posted by webuyselltradestuff

.I know it takes one of those experiences to realize how badly someone "gave" it to you...but it only takes once...

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A victory actually did occur , AND the fact that I actually sold some - compared to just hording and hording is a sign that finally I will sell .
Next I assume if I can sell with the same WOW gratification that I get with Copper and Brass ( even AL and SS these days @ .60 )
I may finally realize that finding a way to get computers is better then just happen chance finding and hording
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Trust me..mailing off a small box of ram...in my case untested stuff...and getting a payment of $236...yep WAY better than the butt kicking it took to find or clean up that amount of wire or brass...you just have to get enough quantity...ie some accounts to pick up 20-40 towers at a whack...or have people drop it off to you (or even partner with a business that is eco friendly and have that at a drop off point)...ie I don't pick up 1 computer, they can drop it off (no money after time and gas).

Try it and you will stop working REALLY hard to load that amount of steel and work a bit smarter...IMO of course...I only do steel occasionally since I an going to the yard with all the tower shells anyways but I STOPPED that stuff after I saw the return on investment...ie ALOT OF WORK for relatively little reward (I have a $40-50 per hour rate on my time or I don't do it)...but everyone is different...you have to put a value on your time and what you want to make, that being the FIRST thing you do when starting to treat it like a real business....just a suggestion