[knarf]

I never learned if that was true or not, but I'm about ready to throw an old VCR away and I wonder ... is there any gold in this .. or ANY electronic device?

.. and if so .. which ones and where?

[Nifster]

Gold is used in many electronic devices because of its good conductivity. Not worth your effort but some companies have made some money by being recyclers of things like pc boards and other parts. Plenty of other stuff inside television sets that are older to avoid.

[Lou L]

I could see them at one time, using gold as a conductor within electronic devices (maybe in switches and other components), but I wouldn't think they would still use it in less-than critical applications like TVs and VCRs. Gold is much too expensive to use, even in small amounts. Of course, if you have a really old device...perhaps.

[chrisser]

I’ve never looked into it, as the quantities are so minute and extraction would likely be cost-prohibitive and a little dangerous.

But, generally speaking, gold is used on contact surfaces in my experience. Places like board interfaces, plugs and sockets, etc. These are the points at which many electronics fail as they are just mechanical contact bonds (as opposed to something like soldering) and subject to corrosion leaching into the contact interface and disrupting the conduction. Gold doesn’t corrode under normal circumstances, so these interfaces remain stable.

But the layer of gold is extremely thin.

[chopperman]

Gold is often flashed onto the pins of connectors in low voltage, low energy circuits. It prevents tarnishing.

[lacrew]

You could go to the store right now, and find video cable with gold tips. I assume its electroplated...and the energy require to melt it down to try and get it would probably cost more than the gold is worth....the entire cable costing only around 15 bucks.

[econjack]

Years ago I was in the printer section in Best Buy and a very young sales guy was talking to an elderly couple (I think they were the two who posed for the painting titled American Gothic). They needed to buy a printer cable and noticed that one sold for $9.95 and another one sold for $49.95. They asked why the huge difference in price. Honest-to-God, the sales kid said: “The expensive one has gold contacts and that will make your printer go faster.”

[Eye of Unk]

I would rather hit the black sands in a certain part of Australia.

trying to strip gold from old electronics will cause a EPA SWAT team to drop in on a person.

[mnehring]

A lot use gold on connectors, however, the higher end, often the more you will find. Of course, when you get into high end audio equipment, even not working, it is probably worth more for parts than the gold you can extract from it. Some, look like they have so much gold it will make you drool but it is usually electroplate and not enough to make it worth the trouble.

[Moose Burger]

Computer motherboards and CPUs use gold, since it can be made into extremely thin cables. It’s probably not much, very hard to extract, and worth more in the component than by weight, though.

[lefty-lie-spy]

You have Internet access and you have to post such a question HERE first!? Why would you not query for “electronics recycling gold” first? Its been a popular recycling method since at least the late 70s.

[stuartcr]

Some analog tuners used gold contacts, but I doubt you could find any today, everything is digital.

[GOPyouth]

[WinMod70]

My standard operating procedure is to disassemble these types of things when they no longer work. I put all the fasteners in a can and save anything that looks cool that I convince myself could be used in the future for something else(don’t know what). Surely some day after spending hours searching through the can I’ll find a screw I need to fix something and save myself a trip to the hardware store and a nickel.

[The Great RJ]

There are also minute amounts of gold in computers, laptops and cell phones. When these items are eventually recycled that gold can be recovered, but the amount of gold in an individual device is miniscule. Have this old VCR recycled.