Boards versus fingers

I am new to escrapping and am wondering if it makes more sense (money) to scrap high grade boards or cut off the gold fingers to sell? Also, who do you recommend selling to...local recycler, ebay, out of my area recycler (if none locally)?

Ill answer the question just cause im a nice guy ALso because im sure other people want to know the answer. It also gives me a chance to plug the sticky post I made. Start here learning about computer scrapping.

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/showt...identification

With the price difference of gold fingered boards and boards with the fingers cut off is now $.80 to $1.55. So you have to ask yourself is it worth your time to trim them. I did this about a week ago. I took 28 pounds of gold finger cards and it took about 30 mins for wife and I to snap off all the gold fingers. For that half hour work we took it from 28 pounds of cards to 27 pounds of cards and 1 pound of gold fingers. Lets take Ewasted current prices and see if it would have been worth it.

gold finger cards 28 lbs at $4.75 = $133
or
trimmed finger cards 27 lbs at $3.20 = $86.40
1 pound gold fingers at $75.00
total $161.40 for a difference of $28.40
So for 1 hour total labor we made a net profit of $28.40 I tend to think anytime you can make more then $20 an hour breaking something apart your not doing bad. I personaly am cutting off all the gold fingers and hoarding them for the rainy day scenario since they dont take up much room. My stash is currently just over 2 pounds.

Now as far as selling goes there are pros and cons to everything. You have to decide what works for you. There are a few buyers on here that buy this stuff.
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/forum...rs-amp-Sellers
If your local yard buys it you need to find out what they pay for the different stuff. My local yard buys motherboards for $2.50 a pound. Again ewasted is paying $4.00 a pound right now. So minus about $.80 per pound ofr shipping. I use that as an average. He will pay me a net of $3.20 a pound for motherboards. So I make $.70 more a pound mailing the boards to him then I do selling them local.

EBAY: This can be tricky and is very hit and miss. You could get $2 or you could get $10 a pound you never know. Its an auction and its a risk you hae to decide if you want to take or not. I personaly like selling to a buyer and getting a said amount for what I have. I have seen gold fingers go as high as $100 per pound but when you factor in ebay fees and paypal fees you end up getting about 85% of final value. So if you get a final bid of $100 youll get $85 after fees. But if you get a bid of $80 a pound your final value will only be $68. SO I rather take the garunteed $75 from ewasted.

I hope this answered your questions

You're a softie PTL. But still a nice guy. So is Mike and so is joe.....we gotta stick together here. jk But at least you could have concurred on the intro.

btw...welcome AL