[ghaff]

I have a bunch of stuff in my house that I know there are people who would be happy to have it and maybe pay a few dollars but I live in a fairly small town and I'm certainly not about to go to the trouble of boxing things up and shipping them. I can get rid of some things by just leaving them at the end of the driveway with a free sign but doesn't work for everything.

[cronix]

ebay is your friend. People buy entire boxes of unknown old electronic equipment junk that may or may not be working. "As is." You don't even have to really list the contents, just a big picture of everything. I think a lot are scrapping the gold and components, something I got into for awhile. I got almost 4 oz of solid gold from crushed cpu's, memory, old IC's, cable connectors, etc., using nitric acid, a hammer and a jar. Also recovered silver. At current gold prices (about $1950/oz) those little bits add up. Old tantalum capacitors sell for quite a bit as well. They used to be huge and if recycled, many smaller modern surface mount caps could be made. There are several channels on youtube showing the process. It can be a fun hobby. Instead of taking my old gear to a recycling center, I throw it in acid (lol).

[pengaru]

Do you really think it's likely the person you're responding to is holding onto these items he knows would be of use to someone, with the intention of it becoming monetized as scrap?

[TedDoesntTalk]

Any videos on how to recover gold from crushed CPUs, ICs, etc?

[zdragnar]

YouTube is your friend here. I think even NileRed has a video on it.

Edit: here you go: https://youtu.be/ASQCa7mfjVo

He does it with PCBs in one and ram connectors in another, but mentions the process is essentially the same for everything else including CPUs. I'm not sure what the economics of the acids he uses versus nitric are, though.

[myself248]

Please, if they're not already crushed, find a classic collector to give them to. Most things from the gilded age (heh) have significance as antiques.

There's nothing more disheartening to a classic computing enthusiast than to see a historically-interesting minicomputer destroyed by goldbugs.