Vintage Home Computers & Boards
A single C64 SID chip sells for $70–170; the entire motherboard it sits on scraps for $3. If you can read a four-digit MOS or Commodore part number, look it up before the board goes near a shear.
How to spot it
C64 boards are brown/tan PCBs marked ASSY 250407/250425/250466/326298 with socketed 40-pin DIPs — 6510, 6581/8580 SID, 6567/6569 VIC-II with a heatsink clip, 906114-01 PLA, 6526 CIA — and a cartridge edge at the rear. Amiga uses 8372A Agnus in 84-pin PLCC plus Denise 8362 and Paula 8364. Apple II is a large green board with eight slots and white ceramic DIPs with gold lids, silkscreened APPLE COMPUTER INC 1978/1980. Look for rainbow Apple, Commodore chicken-head and Atari fuji logos.
Metal content
| Metal | Quantity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | 0.05–0.20 g per C64 board; 0.1–0.4 g per Apple II board | Cartridge and user-port fingers plus ceramic DIPs. Derived, no assays |
| Gold | gold-lid ceramic DIPs at $150–400/lb | The only genuinely rich fraction — but a C64 board yields zero of them, it is all plastic DIP |
| Copper | ~40 g/lb | Traces plus ~150 g of copper and iron in a C64 brick PSU |
At 4 Aug 2026 spot prices that works out to $16.1 per pound of contained metal — Gold 0.12 g = $15.7, Copper 40 g = $0.43. A refiner paying $3.2 returns about 20% of that, which is normal: refining costs money and the buyer takes a margin.
Safe removal
Working temperature: Hot air 300–330 °C, preheat 120–150 °C
Don't desolder — desocket. The value chips on C64, Apple II and Atari 8-bit boards are almost all socketed: use a DIP extractor or two small flat screwdrivers levering alternately from both ends. For soldered PLCCs use hot air at 300–330 °C with the board preheated to 120–150 °C, because 1980s single-sided phenolic lifts pads at the slightest excess. Store chips in anti-static tubes — these are NMOS parts and a static zap is a $100 mistake.
Hazards
NEVER pick up or carry a CRT by the neck.
NEVER short a large capacitor with a screwdriver. It welds the tip, blasts molten metal at your face, and can rupture the can.
NEVER dry sweep or use compressed air on a scrapping bench. HEPA-vac or wet-wipe only.
The practical answer for nearly everyone: sort, concentrate, and sell to a licensed refiner. A good refiner recovers 85–98%, assays rather than guesses, pays on the assay, and takes the waste liability. Your edge as a scrapper is identification and sorting — not chemistry.
NEVER puncture, drain, burn or bin a suspect unit. Burning PCBs produces dioxins and furans.
NEVER cut, drill, sand, tear or blow out suspect material with compressed air.
NEVER grind, sand, file, saw, drill, abrasive-cut, sandblast, hammer, crush, shred, torch, melt or incinerate anything that might contain BeO. Sell or dispose of suspect parts intact. Broken beryllium parts are worth nothing; your lungs are worth everything.
Before you scrap it
The common trap
Questions
How much gold is in vintage home computers & boards?
Gold: 0.05–0.20 g per C64 board; 0.1–0.4 g per Apple II board. Gold: gold-lid ceramic DIPs at $150–400/lb. Copper: ~40 g/lb. At current spot that is about $16.1 of contained metal per pound.
How do you identify vintage home computers & boards?
A single C64 SID chip sells for $70–170; the entire motherboard it sits on scraps for $3. If you can read a four-digit MOS or Commodore part number, look it up before the board goes near a shear.
How do you remove vintage home computers & boards safely?
Don't desolder — desocket. The value chips on C64, Apple II and Atari 8-bit boards are almost all socketed: use a DIP extractor or two small flat screwdrivers levering alternately from both ends. For soldered PLCCs use hot air at 300–330 °C with the board preheated to 120–150 °C, because 1980s single-sided phenolic lifts pads at the slightest excess. Store chips in anti-static tubes — these are NMOS parts and a static zap is a $100 mistake.
Is vintage home computers & boards worth more working than as scrap?
The most value-destructive scrapping decision in consumer e-waste. A working C64 system is $150–320 against $0.50–2 of scrap — 100–600×. Even parted out, one C64 board yields SID + VIC-II + PLA + 2 CIA + CPU = $175–410 from a board that scraps for $3. Check for a barrel battery, replace the RIFA caps, power it on with a known-good PSU and photograph the boot screen — that five-minute sequence is worth more than every gram of gold in the machine.
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