On 2008-04-06, Backlash wrote:

"Ignoramus14041" wrote in message
...
On 2008-04-06, Backlash wrote:
I shop at scrap and salvage yards like most women shop at the mall, if
that
answers your question.
I have furnished my shop with many items from the yards. Hell, I even
bought a J&L comparator for the company out of the scrap yard, buried in
the
mud, for $30 once. Got it going for another $120. We still use it daily.
One
part of my hobby is to purchase and refurb machinery from yards to resell
to
support my machinery "habit". I keep the ones I want for myself. I
recently
bought a pallet of mixed metal junk at auction for $5, and buried down in
it
was a container with several pounds of large silver electrical contacts
in
it that I sold for $1,300 the other day. (Iggy's eyes get big)

Indeed. Very big.

I have a bunch of copper contacts with silver bars soldered on,
too. Not worth nearly as much, obviously. Great job.


Desolder the silver or (silver plated) contacts and sell the bars and
contacts as 2 seperate metals. You will bring in more money. A torch will be
required for this. Heated vertically, the silver parts should drop away by
gravity. Copper spot price is $3.98 this morning. See:
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/co...cal_large.html

You will probably sell below spot, because the guy purchasing has to get his
cut also.

Sure. the contacts seem to be actual silver bars soldered or brased to
the copper. Nothing major. Maybe 3 oz of silver on top of 15 lbs of
copper.

I may try to just heat them in the oven or BBQ to get the silver
pieces to fall off.

i

RJ

Spot price
was $17.55 an ounce at the time. Sold $200 worth of new eprom chips off
it
also. Ya don't do that every day, though. That will be used for seed
money
to make other purchases. I sell some items on the spot in the yard using
the cellphone to read specs off name plates to prospective "clients", to
see
If I have a solid sales lead before even buying the item. Cellphone sends
pics for approval. Friend of mine made $25,000 on one sale of a
specialized
piece of equipment like that.
Some yards have a handheld piece of equipment that they "shoot" metal
with
to tell it's composition. That sucka costs around $36,000 dollars, but
will
sort the trash from the treasures. Check spot price on Rhodium and you'll
know why they have that device. Never mind, checked for you. It's at
$8,980
an ounce tonight. You likely have some around your house.



I should check them out. I have a scrap man who often sells stuff to
me.

i


RJ

"SCOTT" wrote in message
news:050420082054065765%scottb9411removethis@comca st.net...
The town where I live has started not letting you take anything from
the scrap metal bin at the town dump. Apparently they have a contract
with the removal company that requires all metal brought in to stay
there. So it looks like I need to find a new source for bits and
pieces. I haven't tried to buy from scrap yards before. Do you guys do
this, if so is there repairable machinery that comes up there, or is it
all shredded, or what?

Scott