[ForSale-Swap] Of surplus and such

[Lloyd Godsey]

Someone called me and wanted to know why I wanted so much for a piece of 
junk ( one Variac).
Well, I have to pay a scrap dealer $1.00 per pound and up to keep this stuff 
out of the grinder.
That figures out about $14.00 for the variac. I had to put on a new power 
plug
because the original one was smashed, check the unit out and get it ready 
for sale.
The dealer is interested in one thing. GOLD.
When he looks at a lot of surplus he does not see capacitors, resistors, 
transistors, transformers, circuit boards etc.
He sees scrap metal. Old computer boards bring $3-5 lb. Why? Gold flashing 
on edge connectors, on pins on connectors and in IC's
Then there is copper, lead, platinum, palladium, and a host of other metals.
Recovery?
They run the stuff thru a pulverizer,  a shredder then and reduce almost to 
sand.
Virtually all plastics and foreign material is removed in the process.
A sample of the material, say 1 or 2 lbs is then melted in a furnace.
The melted sample is then assayed, as in a mining assay.
A poor sample will run $10.00 per lb, an average one $400-600 per pound and 
I heard one
sample with a lot of gold content hit over $1000 lb.
Incidentally the raw material has to be shipped to Canada to be processed 
because
it might do some environmental damage to do it here.
I try to salvage what I can and spin it back into the hobby. However there 
AIN'T NO FREE LUNCH
and if it gets much worse the several tons of stuff I have on hand will go 
north.
I won't have to argue pennies over the value of something with somebody, my 
shop and yard will be a hell of a lot cleaner,
and my wife will be happier.
Side note, thanx to all of you that have dipped into the fountain of 
electronic junk and came away smiling.
Ain't nuttin' like a blivet.
End of rant.
Now, I picked up the 4 Simpson 260's and 2 Tripplet 630's that had been 
hammered on.
As soon a I can evaluate them will offer parts if anyone is interested.
Also picked up several thousand feet of RG174/U coax.

Thanx
Lloyd Godsey KK7IZ
kk7iz at cox.net
480-620-7145
http://www.lloydsdipsydumpster.com/
http://antiqueradioarchives.com/
Skype: lloyd.godsey