Scrapping question - Large lots of cell phones

The prices aren't there at 6-7 lb any more since the gold price dropped but still, with all the fluff (plastic-metal) left from teardowns your better off selling them whole to one of our good buyers. Save a lot of time and energy.

Unless you have at least 10,000 lbs of phones then I don't think a smelter/refiner would work with you. It takes a lot to get their attention. Your just a bigger guppy in this big recycling ocean.

Originally Posted by sdwyz74

just wondering where a little guy could dump his phones for a good decent price thanks
ps
also got about 15/20 pounds of boards from cellphones I took apart thanks in advance

Scrap Buyers & Sellers - Scrap Metal Forum

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

Thank you all for the advice. The lots we receive range from 15k to 45k pounds. I just want to make sure we are making the right decision. We have received/flipped 4 loads. Currently we get $6-$6.40 per pound of handsets w/o back or battery.

15-45K# would probably be in a range to get a refiner talking to you directly.

Weird how someontimes some people post on here how they have these MASSIVE quantities of an item that they don't know how to get the most out of. 99% of us on here DO know how to get the most out of those items but will not see that kinda amounts of those commodities in our lifetimes, much less every week. Seems there was a guy on here awhile back that had someone call him wanting to get rid of a warehouse full of 6000 old computers. He "called up some buddies" with 18 wheelers... (?)... and hired 4 newby temp workers & got them all disassembled in 3 days ...(?)... but didn't know what to do with the boards. Don't make no sense, I tell ya!!

Weird.

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

Thank you all for the advice. The lots we receive range from 15k to 45k pounds. I just want to make sure we are making the right decision. We have received/flipped 4 loads. Currently we get $6-$6.40 per pound of handsets w/o back or battery.

Paul

If your getting those types of numbers then read some of Noble's posts about refiners, the what's and wherefore's.
You'll just have to approach them as the "big boys" don't frequent here a lot. Unless they do it as guests.
You seem to be getting a fair price by my guess.
In this case, seller beware.

EXAMPLE; http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/elect...ast-buyer.html

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/intro...rap-buyer.html

Cash For Electronic Scrap U.S.A Complaint 17987 | Scambook

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

I'm new to e-scrap recycling and trying to understand the process a little more.

You are starting at the right place. If you do not understand e-scrap yet, this is the place to be. I would suggest not selling anything until you do.

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

I have access to large qtys of scrap cell phones

You have access to? Or you are currently buying large quantities? If you clarify exactly what your position is I might be able to explain things better.

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

I see some larger companies that buy these for $6-$7 a pound.

I don't generally see companies that are paying $6-$7 per lb on cell phones. That might be the case on cell phone boards, but there is a huge giant world of different between a lb of cell phone boards, and cell phones. Cell phones have so much fluff that 1 lb might be 3-4 cell phones where 1 lbs of cell phone boards might be 10-20 boards. Since you are not sure about e-scrap, I want to make sure that you are posting correctly and ask you, is this cell phone boards, or cell phones themselves. Because at $6-$7 per lb on cell phones, there is no money to be made for the processor. Even on the highest end smart phone, at today's process, there might be .45 cents worth of gold per sq inch of cell phone board. I'll post numbers per lb so you can understand what I am saying, at the bottom of this post.

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

What are these companies doing with the phones? I realize the break them down for recycle but are they smelters? Any insight to the process would be helpful.

Smelting is a word that is thrown around to describe many different things. Lets first define what smelting is, and what is common practice in processing cell phones.

Smelting is pyro-metallurgy in where the "smelter" will use a specially formulated flux to remove unwanted material from desired material or material with values. It's part of a process in recovering values from material, but it's not usually the first step in recovering values from cell phone type material.

There is first separation of the unwanted material that does not contain values represented as precious metals. That being "fluff" or plastic, base metals/ferrous metals/magnetic metals, any organic materials, etc. Once processed you are left with the unwanted recyclable material, metal items that have gold plating, and cell phone PC boards.

For now lets concentrate on what happens to the cell phone boards from this point. The normal way to process would be to incinerate, firing at high temperature to pyrolyze the boards, the components on the boards, etc. Further magnetic processing removes any other base/magnetic materials.

Now this is the point the boards are actually "smelted" which removes the ash, and any other non magnetic base metals. After this process the metal is separated from the slag and poured into a Dore' bar.

Dore' is still impure. Depending on the processor, this might be the extent of how far they take the refining process. The Dore' would then be sold to a large refinery that would process it further. Or if the "smelter" is also the refiner, then it would be accumulated until there was enough Dore' to justify running a large batch. If anyone needs or wants to know how it's processed from this point forward, I can post another post and explain what is done.

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

What is the best option for large lots? Sell them by the pound as is? Break them down and work with a smelter? Again, I'm new so all of this could be way off base but I'm here to learn. Thanks,

Paul

If you are getting $6-$7 per lb on cell phones that have not been broken down, I wouldn't play around, I would sell them and sell as many lbs at that prices as you possibly can. I can tell you this however, if you are getting that price it's most likely not going to last for very long, because someone is loosing money. To break a cell phone down costs a lot, it's a substantial investment.

Originally Posted by MattInTheHat

most of them probably look for reusable ones, then shred the rest.

A lot of the buyers set their prices so that it is not worth taking them apart yourself.

If a company is refurbishing the higher end cell phones, and there were enough of them in any given lot, that might explain a $6-$7 dollar per lb price, but I just don't see it to be honest. Regardless, MattInTheHat brings up an excellent point. If you want to get more bang for your buck, it would be worth your time, effort and energy to recover phones that are new enough, and in good enough shape to be either refurbished or used for parts. If you are really moving the number of phones you are claiming you are, it might take awhile but you could create another totally separate business based on that business model alone.

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

Thank you all for the advice. The lots we receive range from 15k to 45k pounds. I just want to make sure we are making the right decision. We have received/flipped 4 loads. Currently we get $6-$6.40 per pound of handsets w/o back or battery.

Paul

So you are getting that price for a full cell phone, not just boards? I wouldn't even play around, those are great prices, sell as much as you can at that price but I would pull out the best ones for the reasons stated above.

Originally Posted by sdwyz74

just wondering where a little guy could dump his phones for a good decent price thanks

ps

also got about 15/20 pounds of boards from cellphones I took apart thanks in advance

Cell them on ebay, hobbyist refiners will buy them just to break them down and recover the gold. They are not as concerned with the prices they pay, as hobbyists they are paying for a hobby, not trying to make a living. You can either break them down yourself and sell them on ebay as cell phone boards, and the connectors as gold plated connectors. Or you can try to sell them whole. You will get a much better price though separating them out.

Originally Posted by auminer

15-45K# would probably be in a range to get a refiner talking to you directly.

Weird how someontimes some people post on here how they have these MASSIVE quantities of an item that they don't know how to get the most out of. 99% of us on here DO know how to get the most out of those items but will not see that kinda amounts of those commodities in our lifetimes, much less every week. Seems there was a guy on here awhile back that had someone call him wanting to get rid of a warehouse full of 6000 old computers. He "called up some buddies" with 18 wheelers... (?)... and hired 4 newby temp workers & got them all disassembled in 3 days ...(?)... but didn't know what to do with the boards. Don't make no sense, I tell ya!!

Weird.

I was talking with someone fairly recently about a huge lot of e-scrap they were suppose to have. After endless emails back and forth, I finally asked him to be honest and tell me the skinny without any bull. It turned out the person didn't have any material, they came across a website that someone had posted a large quantity of boards on and thought they could make money. The person they were speaking with about this large quantity turned out to be nothing but a broker. The broker wasn't in direct contact with the company that was selling the material, matter of fact it was another broker and another after that. It was a ghost lot. This person then attempted to find someone that really had material to sell, and kept messaging me asking for yields and prices. I finally told him to put me in contact with this person who was suppose to be selling the material, or to come clean about what exactly it was that was going on.

Happens all the time. People see something they think they can make money on just playing the middle. What they really end up doing is playing around with imaginary lots of e-waste.

Okay, now to the fun stuff.

These are average yields, ranging from the low end cell phone boards to high end.

These numbers are per ton of cell phones

Metal Type Low End - High End

Gold 150g 300g

Platinum 120g 240g

Palladium 120g 240g

Copper 100k 200k

k = Kilo g = grams

1 troy ounce = 31.1 grams

1 kilo = 32.15 troy ounces

Originally Posted by m00nshin3

Thank you all for the advice. The lots we receive range from 15k to 45k pounds. I just want to make sure we are making the right decision. We have received/flipped 4 loads. Currently we get $6-$6.40 per pound of handsets w/o back or battery.

Paul

Getting $6-6.40 a pound @ 45K per week, while asking how to get more = enough to make me wonder, how many days would it take for Noble to answer that question in a Tweet? Almost fries the mind, don't it! ; )

Originally Posted by Bear

Getting $6-6.40 a pound @ 45K per week, while asking how to get more = enough to make me wonder, how many days would it take for Noble to answer that question on a Tweet? Almost fries the mind, don't it! ; )

Haha, very funny. Just wait Bear, I'll getcha back for that!

Yeah I know, walls of text, I apologize. I'm always afraid I'm not explaining myself well so I barf up words all over the computer screen, and surprising do so without getting my fingers too tongue tied.

I get texts sometimes, and start to answer a question or and realize that it's probably not the best way to respond, and end up calling.

It's kind of ironic, I don't tweet, I have tried, but I never can microblog my mind and get frustrated trying to.

Scott

Thanks NMW, I'm not knockin ya, kinda laughin with ya here, hope you understand my side too, kinda add, short and sweet, doin the best i can, wantin to move on with it, always hoping for the best : )

Uh huh, I know, this is probably going to be the only time I admit this, but after I write what I do I don't even read what I wrote. I go back and read it in fits and starts, and keep correcting spelling errors each time I do. So I'm laughing right along with you.

I hope someone reads it though, lol. Otherwise what in the hell am I doing?

Scott