Gold-fingered cards (untrimmed)

Grade is set by what's still bolted on. Clean card $8.50/lb, with bracket $7.50, with fan/heatsink $4.25, with an oversize cooler $2.30. Ten minutes with a screwdriver is a 2–4× move.

Au 0.2–0.5 g/lbAg 0.5–2 g/lbCu 15–25%

eBay typical$10–20per lb

Refiner pays$8.5per lb

Metal in it$14.2per lb at 4 Aug 2026 spot

Confidencemedof the yield figures

How to spot it

Any expansion card with a gold edge: video, NIC, sound, SCSI, RAID, HBA. 1990s ISA/token-ring/SCSI cards with long thick-plated fingers are the good ones.

Metal content

Metal	Quantity	Notes
Gold	0.2–0.5 g/lb	fingers + BGA + plating
Silver	0.5–2 g/lb
Copper	15–25%

At 4 Aug 2026 spot prices that works out to $14.2 per pound of contained metal — Gold 0.09 g = $11.7, Silver 0.8 g = $1.52, Copper 90 g = $0.96. A refiner paying $8.5 returns about 60% of that, which is normal: refining costs money and the buyer takes a margin.

Safe removal

Working temperature: Cold

Strip bracket, fan and heatsink first. Then decide: shear the fingers and sell the two streams separately, or sell whole. Shearing wins on thick-plated older cards.

Before you scrap it

Any card that still posts is worth 10–100× its scrap weight. A 2 lb GPU is $12 of scrap and can be $325 tested.

The common trap

Weighing a card with its cooler attached is how people conclude that fingers 'aren't worth it'.

Questions

How much gold is in gold-fingered cards (untrimmed)?

Gold: 0.2–0.5 g/lb. Silver: 0.5–2 g/lb. Copper: 15–25%. At current spot that is about $14.2 of contained metal per pound.

How do you identify gold-fingered cards (untrimmed)?

Grade is set by what's still bolted on . Clean card $8.50/lb, with bracket $7.50, with fan/heatsink $4.25, with an oversize cooler $2.30. Ten minutes with a screwdriver is a 2–4× move.

How do you remove gold-fingered cards (untrimmed) safely?

Strip bracket, fan and heatsink first. Then decide: shear the fingers and sell the two streams separately, or sell whole. Shearing wins on thick-plated older cards.

Is gold-fingered cards (untrimmed) worth more working than as scrap?

Any card that still posts is worth 10–100× its scrap weight. A 2 lb GPU is $12 of scrap and can be $325 tested.

Related in Boards

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