Realcent.org

Does anyone know how to tell the percentage of gold on gold plated fingers from 70's commercial radios? Thanks in advance.

gubni wrote:http://www.goldrefiningforum.com

Hey gubni:

Thanks for the site!

It will take lots of fingers to make it worth your time to refine. Plating on fingers is thin, but as always, the older the better. Best way to move them would be sell them on e-bay. When you remove the fingers from the board, make sure to trim them nice and close and don't leave a lot of excess board in the finger. The better the trim, the more buyers will be willing to pay for the lot.

Scott

Well I don't know what a lot is, but I have a 5 pound bag of clean fingers. All from old motorola 2-way radios from county surplus. Took them to a refiner. They x-rayed them and said 66 percent copper, 10 percent nickel, 4 percent gold, 20 percent zinc. Does this sound right? Will x-ray give them this info?

As is you should be able to get $250 - $275 for them less shipping. Are you trying to remove the gold?

Not trying to refine them myself. Will put on ebay soon.

bruce,

When you list them, do it in one pound batches (or lots). That way almost everybody can get in on the action. If your fingers are true 70's vintage and from Motorola radios, make sure you put that info in the description. Also, take good clear photos of each batch when you list. One more thing. Make sure the fingers are trimmed real close to the gold. Buyers will pay a premium for good, close-trimmed fingers. If you do all that, you can expect to get upwards of $100.00 to $125.00 a pound for your efforts. Not too bad, eh?

can one of you post pic of the fingers you are talking about? I'm familiar with what all of the components of computers look like, but I'm a little confused.

stlouiscoin The finger is the connector portion of an expansion card, the male slot that slides perpendicular into a female connection on a motherboard.

I've attached a photo with the finger portion circled.

I deal with several tons of finger cards every year, and I'm of the opinion that it's not worth the time to remove the finger portions. Doing so greatly devalues the the rest of the board and it's a lot of time invested for little return. However, with some other types of circuit boards such as the OP is discussing, the fingers are the only valuable portion of the entire board and in this case it makes sense to remove them.

gotcha. and do you just cut the entire part off, or just the tiny little gold slivers?

I use an old table top paper shear which cuts most of them pretty clean and close.....I have about a lb sheared but prices are not that great right now , $50 / lb. so they just sit in a jar waiting.......since this is my tenth post I may have to start checking out the auction threads. ;?)