Real gold in computers?

Bruce Bump

Bruce Bump

Joined
Dec 2, 1999
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A guy brought over a small box of curcuit board connection ribbons that he salvaged from about a thousand computers. He says its gold and wants me to melt it down. Do you think it really is gold? Its really thin but there are plenty of them (about 8 oz.)
 
Yes they use gold plated contacts since it doesn't oxidize. You probably have gold plated though , instead of solid gold . Computers and other electronics are recycled for the gold and other precious metals . But now they are reusing components , they are quite valuable.
 
There are all sorts of ways to test for it being gold- so find out for yourself. My money is on yes, just because I'm generally optimistic.
 
There's real gold in computer parts, where at I'm not sure. I do know that it isn't very much. The terminals are probably electro plated.
 
I went through this many years ago as one of our local electronic companies was pitching old circuit boards.I got about 4 pounds of gold terminals.I went to some jeweler's and they said it was 22 carat but I would need about 100 lbs. to be worthwhile as the process for recovering the gold is involved and does cost some money.I tried simple melting and it didn't work very well at all.Oh well, a 4 lb. container with gold in it still makes for a good conversation piece.Dave:)
 
Bruce Bump said:
A guy brought over a small box of curcuit board connection ribbons that he salvaged from about a thousand computers. He says its gold and wants me to melt it down. Do you think it really is gold? Its really thin but there are plenty of them (about 8 oz.)
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There was a show on the history chanel about recycling. There was a guy from a company that recycled computer components. He said originally they were tearing up computers for .40 cents worth of gold. They were throwing out $60.00 worth of computer chips.
 
Thanks guys. I also talked to Bruce Evans tonight and he says that the small amount of gold is just gold plating and requires chemicals to separate it from the base metals and unless I have enough pounds it isnt worthwhile. Pretty much the same thing you guys said.
 
ILOVETOOLSTEEL has the info.There is almost no actual gold volume in a computer.The contacts are gold plated with 22K gold,but it is only a few millionths of an inch thick.It has to be recycled in huge batches to recover even an ounce.In contrast to computers,the dust that settles in my jewelers shop has a much higher gold content.We vacuum it all up and send it to the refiner once a year,along with the floor sweepings and polisher dust.We get back about 10 ounces of pure gold.Mete was correct (as he always is) about the value in computers being in the chips and removable components.
 
I read once it only took an ounce of gold to plate a 747, melting that down would sure be a challenge.
 
I gave that a try once. when i was knee high to a grasshopper :D, my father owned a recycling center and we got a bunch of old computers. Some guy told my dad that there was solid gold on the terminals, so he put me to work. After about a week of work we tried to cash in the gold, which was really just plated. The guy told us we needed a 55 gal drum full to get anything out of them. My dad did however find someone to buy the old boards out of them (i think .25 a peice in 1991). That may be worth looking into if you have a large quantity.
 
There is gold in computers, but in very small amounts. It is only going to be found on plated contacts. You will not find any gold wiring, because gold is not as good a conductor as copper, and high purity copper is a much better conductor. Gold is used for contacts because in doesn't oxidize, not because it is the best conductor.
 
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