In the world of gaming, old consoles and controllers quickly become obsolete. The result is that the old gaming equipment you have lying around can be a good source of gold you can recycle. The trick is knowing where to look. 

Christmas always brings a lot of new presents into my house. It’s a great time of year. 

But while I was shopping this week, I started to think about some of the presents I got in years past. Some of them are still in their original boxes, unopened! Wouldn’t this be a great time to pull those old presents out and decide to start using them now and if not, whether to sell them. 

It could also be a time to remove printed circuit boards from some of them and reclaim the gold and silver they contain. Maybe you are like me and have old items lying around that could contain precious metals that can be removed and recycled profitably. 

With the holidays coming soon, are you hoping to receive a spanking-new digital camera as a gift? Or have you decided that the camera that is in your smartphone has gotten so powerful that you no longer need to own a digital camera?

In either case, the result is probably the same . . .

Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCCs or MLCC chips), which are small electronic components made of alternating ceramic and metallic layers, can be found in many applications today.

If you take a look at your computer and work area, you will notice a major trend that has changed just about everything about the way you work, store data, use software, store videos and pictures, and more . . .

Most of what you do is now taking place on the cloud, not on your computer and local storage devices

It seems that everything about cars is changing today, usually moving to apps. You want a ride somewhere, you fire up an app. You want to buy a car? Ditto. And if you want to scrap a car or donate it to a charity, you can manage all the details online and before you know it, a tow truck shows up and hauls your car away.

We don’t know exactly how much gold and silver are contained in a Tickle Me Elmo, but we are certain some can be found in the little guy’s printed circuit board. What about a Cabbage Patch Doll? We don’t think so.

But the fact is, all the electronic items that you and your family members got at the holidays in years past do contain silver and gold – as well as small quantities of copper and other non-precious metals. You could let those old gifts gather in your house and clutter up your closet. Or you could gather them up and send them to Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners to be recycled.

It’s a good idea to collect large quantities of little smartphones that were made in the last five years – batches of 50, 100 or more – and send them to us to be recycled. The same is true for remotes. But let’s face realities. In order to make a good return on having us recycle them for you, you need a lot of them.

Before you toss your old cellphone, TV remote, laptop, or tablet, remember that they contain gold. Although those small devices don’t contain immense quantities of gold, you don’t want to throw gold away, do you? So before you toss them, give our precious metal recycling consultants a call at 800-426-2344 and we can explain your recycling options.

Scrapped electronic devices of all kinds contain gold, silver, and other non-precious recyclable metals like copper and aluminum. And there is no doubt about it, you can make money by starting a business that collects those scrapped metals and sells them at a profit.

If the idea of having an electronics recycling business of your own appeals to you – and it should – here are the basics of how your new business will function.

Your husband gives you a new tablet for Chanukah. Or you get a new gaming console for Junior as a Christmas gift.

There’s no doubt about it. The holidays are the time of year when older electronic devices get replaced by new ones – often dozens of them at a time. And you have a choice. You could stick all your old devices in your dresser drawer, or you could gather them up and send them to Specialty Metals Smelters and refiners and have us recover the gold, platinum and silver they contain. Before you dismiss this suggestion because you have only five or six items, let us ask you a question . . .

Would you like to make $100 or more today by sitting at your kitchen table snipping gold contacts? If you would, here’s what you need to know.

The answer may surprise you

Today, everybody you see seems to be staring at a mobile phone. About 15 years ago, every adult you saw was poking away at a Blackberry and every kid you saw was listening to music on an iPad or other portable music player.

We were in an electronics store recently, where we saw a small electronic device lying next to a cash register. We asked a salesman, “What is that thing that looks like a tiny cellphone?”

If you’re clearing out an electronics store or supplier, you have good opportunities to find precious metals – most often gold – in many kinds of electronic devices.

According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, a million cellphones contain about 75 pounds of gold, 33 pounds of palladium . . . and 770 pounds of silver. That might seem like a lot of precious metal to you, or it might seem like a small amount when you consider that you have to recycle a million phones to access it. But here’s another statistic that makes it seem like it might not be that difficult to get your hands on a million phones:

It’s no secret that vast numbers of computers are being discarded. According to some estimates, one million pounds of old computers are tossed out every year.

“I’ve got a stack of old air conditioners,” a caller told us recently. “They contain precious metals that you can extract and recycle for me, right?”

If you have visited the Statue of Liberty or another tourist destination lately, you have noticed that hardly anybody is using digital cameras these days. Five years ago you would have seen all those tourists taking snapshots with small cameras made by Olympus, Sony, and other companies. Today, nearly all those pix are being shot using smartphones.

A customer called us recently and asked, “Can you still make money by recycling computers now that the age of desktops seems to be over? It’s not worth recycling laptops, is it?”