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.

We have written on this blog before about retrieving gold scrap from old computers. It is actually pretty easy to do, since you can see the gold, which is mostly found on the little pins that are on the edges of motherboards, printed circuit boards, memory chips - in the little pins that are used to plug those devices into surrounding contact blocks.

It is easy to find businesses that are for sale. You will find them advertised in newspapers that are published near where you live. Plus, you can find hundreds of them online on BizBuySell.com and other online listings of businesses that are for sale. Just search online for “businesses for sale” and you’ll soon be looking at hundreds of them. 

It seems likely that prices are trending up, and could continue to do so for months, or even for several years. If that is the case, what are your best gold investment strategies? If you believe that gold prices will continue to rise, here are two to consider…

Over the last four or five years, tens of thousands of older desktop computers have been scrapped. Although a lot of that recycling has already happened, it is still possible to find quantities of older desktops that you can buy at extremely low, junk prices. And if you can buy up a quantity of them and extract the gold they contain, you stand to make a very good profit.

More and more towns and cities across America are holding recycling day events to collect old electronic devices. Electronic recycling days provide a needed service to individuals, who often do not know how or where to responsibly recycle old electrical devices. Whether you are a company that already has stockpiles of electronics to recycle or a company that wants to do something good for your community, you should consider getting involved. By doing good, you could also have an opportunity to earn income.

If you’re looking to buy a business that could have untapped quantities of precious metals, which businesses should you be looking at? That question is well worth asking, because when people dispose of businesses they often do not take the time to diligently assess the value of the assets that they are selling. Sometimes they are selling because they are in financial distress. Sometimes they have lost interest and simply want to dispose of a business. Sometimes they are selling businesses that belonged to relatives who became too infirm or old to run them. Sometimes owners have passed away and lawyers want to sell businesses quickly to settle estates.

We get many calls at Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners from people who have cellphones, catalytic converters, computers, remote control devices, and other items that contain precious metals that can be extracted and refined. The first question that those callers ask is usually, “How much are they worth?” And the first question that we usually ask them is, “How many do you have?”