GRADE THAT BOARD! It's a new E-Scrapper gameshow!

Ok so There is so much question about Board grading...I thought I'd go out to the garage pull a bunch of boards and take some pictures. I uploaded them to my website gallery.

I'd like to ask the E-Scrap Buyers to please look at the boards, and as best you can give us an idea of what each board grades at. As you guys give it a grade I'll go back into the gallery and change the number to a grade. if people upload more pics here I'll add them to the gallery once they're graded.

It'll be a nice reference tool. I know for me it'll help me KNOW what my hoard is valued at before I submit it for "Actual Grading".

And feel free to steal these pics, or utilize this gallery, it's a community thing...I have plenty of webspace and bandwidth...now...gentlemen start your GRADING!

www.lima4sale.com/gallery

:)

You have some nice boards. If I'm not mistaken a couple of them are from a partner phone system. Nice find.

I'm new to E-cycling, and at this stage, I approach this hobby from an almost purely aesthetic perspective. Regardless of the historic, functional, and/or salvage metal values, these boards are works of art. Each one is a unique George Jetson model of the futuristic city on the hill -- the lunar landscape from a child's 1950s sci-fi imagination.

Put these under glass, give them proper lighting, and I bet you could charge $25 a pop at your nearest MOMA.
"The Printed Circuit Board: Roadmap to Modernity"

1. Lower grade telecom...small board is a #3 motherboard
2. #2 motherboard
3. #1 motherboard (aka high grade motherboard)
4. Laptop motherboard
5. #1 motherboard
6. #2 motherboard
7. #1 motherboard (subjective grade on this one...the socket size suggests #2 but the rest of the board suggests #1)
8. #2 motherboard
9. #1 motherboard
10. Mid grade green
11. Mid grade green
12. #3 motherboard
13. #3 motherboard
14. Back plane expansion (we have our own grade for these, other buyers put them with other boards)
15. Telecom
16. #3 motherboard (possible telecom but not likely)
17. #3 motherboard
18. Telecom
19. low grade telecom
20. telecom
21. telecom
22. trimmed telecom
23. trimmed telecom
24. back plane expansion
25. low grade trimmed telecom
26. low grade brown board
27. low grade brown board
28. toss up: low grade telecom or #3 motherboard
29. #3 motherboard (just barely)
30. #1 motherboard

man I sure dont care for the direction this board grading thing is heading. seems to me it is going in the direction of metal grading by some yards, i.e. oops there is screw in that piece of extruded so that load is mixed alu, that copper is shelacked its #2 dirty etc.

how is the field buyer of ewaste supposed to handle this. I am in negotiation for almost 400 computers, how am I supposed to grade those, do I have to tear down every computer on site to grade the board before I can quote my customers a price a price? Is this what it is going to come to ?

If this is the case then it is going to force the little guy like me out of business. On the other hand, in defence of the buyers, I understand that newer chinese products contain less PM value. If boards are going to start to be graded on an individual basis, it has to be simplafied some way, and done by computer, i.e. pre 2000, pre 1995 etc. for example the servers I just broke down are all pre 1991 Sun and IBM, the gold content is obviously much much greater then after 2000 servers. the color is much darker and richer and there is no flash plating in these puppys. sooo does that mean my buyer is going to pay a premium of say 3 times what 2000 and newer boards will bring, some how I doubt that.

I understand when dealing with gaylord size or semi size loads is different for the buyers then simple 100 lb shipments by people like me, Im just saying when we slide farther down the road of grading individual boards we have to be carefull not to make it too complicated.

it is all relitive, to come up with $2000 for me to buy a load of computers is just as hard as the big buyers to come up with $20,000 or $200,000. please just remember , with out us little guys there will be no big guys.

P.s. thanks to Thor for the pics and to CS for grading them.

@ RScomputer Thanks! A lot of the boards I have right now are from a MERLIN phone system. I have about 60 phones to take to my old man today for him to take apart!
@ Electricmetal They are pretty to me, because they glitter like little black and green GOLD. It's all about the Money Brother!
@ ComputerScrapper WOW! That was fast! Thanks man! As I get some different board in I'll upload them and we'll get them graded too. I have a couple dvd players and blue ray players to break down. Might yield some new stuff to see.


I think a lot of the metal scrappers might be missing out on some extra $$ by not pulling a higher grade board out of a unit before putting it in their shred pile.

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Originally Posted by olddude

P.s. thanks to Thor for the pics and to CS for grading them.

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No sweat man. I just stole this form CS's website, it might help you grade boards without looking at them:

#1 Motherboard: This grade consists of all motherboards made for the Pentium 3 (or AMD equiv) and older processors.

#2 Motherboard: This grade consists of all motherboards made for the Pentium 4 (or AMD equiv) and newer processors.

#3 Motherboard: This grade consists of circuit boards from CD/DVD drives, modems, printers, cable boxes, higher end telephone systems, laptop docking stations, etc…

If you know that all of the pc's you're buying are P3, or older, then you know that they're going to be a #1 MB, or at least you can grade on that thought....MB are a little more black and white. I'm surprised by some of the other grading, with the Misc boards. It keeps me excited to be out on the hunt!

Thank you all for this thread and to Olddude, well stated, Mike.

thx that does help clarify my current buy as they are all pre 1995 school computers so I can pretty safely assume they are all #1.

My question to all. Let us say someone new had this collection of boards and mailed them to their buyer without taking the time get them graded. How many buyers would you venture to say would be generous enough to grade these boards like CS did and be honest to their buyer?

I've been ripped off so many times at my local yards that I have become so skeptical of all buyers. As a recyler, I really don't want to spend time grading boards. I want to spend time getting more products. I want an honest buyer who I can send a collection like this and trust they wont do me wrong.

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Originally Posted by Jeremiah

My question to all. Let us say someone new had this collection of boards and mailed them to their buyer without taking the time get them graded. How many buyers would you venture to say would be generous enough to grade these boards like CS did and be honest to their buyer?

I've been ripped off so many times at my local yards that I have become so skeptical of all buyers. As a recyler, I really don't want to spend time grading boards. I want to spend time getting more products. I want an honest buyer who I can send a collection like this and trust they wont do me wrong.

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I know when I have shipped boards to ewasted. Just throw them all in a box. The 2 shipments I have sent him so far anyway. He seperates and grades them and then pays you on that grade. I have gotten back more then I expected both times. He will even send you a shipping label and take the cost of shipping out of the total at the end.

Most buyers have a mixed grade as well. If your buyer will sort and pay on sort then stay with him

We don't mind sorting when material arrives at our place. The main reason why we post the different grades on our pricing guide would be the fact that most customers like to have a general idea of what they have before they sell it. Like other buyers, we encourage our clients to stuff as much in each and every box when they ship to us. This saves money and we will be doing a sort anyway so how it gets to us is not that big of a deal. Most buyers will do their own sort anyway. We have a lot of larger clients that simply do not want to take the time to sort all of their material so they throw it all in one big box and we sort it out and send them a detailed breakdown once we have sorted it.

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Originally Posted by ComputerScrapper

We don't mind sorting when material arrives at our place. The main reason why we post the different grades on our pricing guide would be the fact that most customers like to have a general idea of what they have before they sell it. Like other buyers, we encourage our clients to stuff as much in each and every box when they ship to us. This saves money and we will be doing a sort anyway so how it gets to us is not that big of a deal. Most buyers will do their own sort anyway. We have a lot of larger clients that simply do not want to take the time to sort all of their material so they throw it all in one big box and we sort it out and send them a detailed breakdown once we have sorted it.

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Which is why I'll be making the drive to Portland Indiana very soon. I have a pickup of about 15-20 pcs tomorrow, and I'm waiting on a local repair shop to let come pick some units up. Once the truck is full I'm headed over.

I can only rate one buyer, ewasted rates a 9+ on a 10 scale in all areas with me. I judge price and service primarily. the only reasion he dosent rate a ten is because I want to leave the option open to other buyers here to beat that 9+, I am after all in this business to make money, and my life as easy and uncomplicated as possable. my srewey personal life leaves no room for screw ups in my business life. :)

I second OldDude on that, Mike.

To C.S, thortek is really making you work for your lunch.

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I've been ripped off so many times at my local yards that I have become so skeptical of all buyers. As a recyler, I really don't want to spend time grading boards. I want to spend time getting more products. I want an honest buyer who I can send a collection like this and trust they wont do me wrong.

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I would have to say to Jeremiah that if something like that happened with one of the buyers on this board, you would be reading a buyer beware type of warning. Our members will not keep silent and let something like that go on. I think there's too much at risk for one of our buyers to do something like that. Just like there was a repeated warning issued about the cash for gold (cash for computers). We could not put a buyer out of business but I guarantee you that we could put a hurt on his business.

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Me I will stick to my Ferrous & Non-Ferrous the reason why is if I think they are ripping me off I will move to the next Yard. The E-Waste industry you haven't got that option not like there is a E-Waste buyer on every street corner.

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MDG, if it keeps going, there will be as more and more find out about it.

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I am after all in this business to make money, and my life as easy and uncomplicated as possible. my screwy personal life leaves no room for screw ups in my business life.

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That is so funny,,,

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Originally Posted by olddude

I can only rate one buyer, ewasted rates a 9+ on a 10 scale in all areas with me. I judge price and service primarily. the only reasion he dosent rate a ten is because I want to leave the option open to other buyers here to beat that 9+, I am after all in this business to make money, and my life as easy and uncomplicated as possable. my srewey personal life leaves no room for screw ups in my business life. :)

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I would give him a straight 9. The only thing he lacks on is CPU quantities. Having to save till you get a pound of green fibers sucks IMO. I do send him all my boards for now though.

I wasn't calling out CS..LOL! He just happened to be the only Buyer that stepped up to the challenge. If any other buyers see this thread, and have a 2nd opinion, I have no problem putting up #1 Motherboard or #2 mother board on a pic.

The idea was to give everyone some insight, and to see if it's worth dismantling an item and saving the boards to make $4 a pound as opposed to $0.12 a pound.

I almost sold the telecom equipment for $0.05 a pound. Glad I ripped it all down. I'm hoping to help maximize everyone's profit margin, and save good E-Waste from ending up as carbon in the next batch of steel.