Quick question about gold plated ribbon cable pins

Before I do anything with these are they plated? They don't look like it and stick to a magnet
New to this, sorry if its an easy answer

Originally Posted by etack

they came from ide ribbon cables.

Eric

any idea of what they are worth value wise per lb/oz? just curious as to why they are a waste. I think I can do about one connector every 20 seconds if I'm opening up the plastic while it's still connected to the ribbon and pulling pins that way.

got a photo of the connector ?

Says TYCO/Electronics and on other side very small is ODD GND if that means anything. And ya it came off a ribbon cable

Thanks JW. I've never had one of those apart but never expected the innards to be of that sort. Guessing I should tear one of em down sometimes eh ; )

Originally Posted by Bear

Thanks JW. I've never had one of those apart but never expected the innards to be of that sort. Guessing I should tear one of em down sometimes eh ; )

No problem. Any idea if they are gold plated? I have some more but not sure if i should bother or not

Originally Posted by olddude

Takes a lot of them to be any value, but they are salable, any thing 5lb or over I wil buy any thing less sell to the newby nuts on ebay.

Ya I figured since they are so light. But I hate to waste any metal so it all adds up. So even thought they look silver, they're plated?

there are some old threads with posts about the pins and taking them apart jw
There should be a "similar threads" list on the bottom of each thread but I don't see one here for some reason

you can sell the connecters whole to most of the board buyers on here. Most likely whoever you sell your boards to will buy them.

you can ebay them for more than a regular buyer would pay for them.

There are 1 or 2 buyers on here that buy the ribbon connecters specifically, maybe one of them would buy the pins.

Originally Posted by spinroch

Just cut the ribbon cable off and throw the connectors in a bucket. You can sell them to the buyers here on SMF. You should be able to get between $0.75 to 1.50 per pound (plus postage) for gold plated connectors. (SMF peeps, reply if you know who pays more!) You can sell the ribbon cable, too.... It's all about the most efficient use of your time. It's called OPTIMIZATION. Don't undervalue your time. If you are picking out gold pins, you aren't out there looking for more profitable stuff to scrap.

Well I've been doing this while I've been snowed in, not much else to do. I'll have to look around for buyers first too. Thank you!

Originally Posted by jw7783

Before I do anything with these are they plated? They don't look like it and stick to a magnet
New to this, sorry if its an easy answer

They are flash plated just at the end where you can see the gold. The rest is probably brass with a tin, or such coating. I have no idea what they are worth in gold after recovery or on 'the market'.

Not all of the connectors are like this one. Some are 100% gold plated & some are only 1%.

Even the same strand of interconnect cable will have different amounts of gold on different connectors. As a general lead, the older the better for gold coverage percentage.

These are the pins that I think people on ebay are melting down & selling as 'gold drops'. Theres a lot said about the morality of such sellers. but I think they are selling the partially gold plated pins, melted down into a blob, for making jewelery from.

And saving the high percentage gold pins for gold recovery. They are off setting their time spent picking the plugs apart.