I was in the "big city" on Sat and by mid-day, leaving one of the stores I stopped at is difficult to turn left against all the traffic, so I usually go right a block and exit onto some residential streets that border commercial property and get around the congestion that way. Turning the corner to come north on the first residential street, there's still an empty lot and behold an old Sony 50-inch rear=projection tv dumped there with a softball sized hole in the screen.

I don't do much for electronic scrapping anymore but I figure this is a "mercy pick-up" that cleans up the city a bit and maybe puts a few dollars in my pocket by taking it apart. I haven't done a rear-projection for a while and they can be interesting, what's recyclable inside, especially for base metals, can vary a lot. I thought the hole in the screen was probably caused by someone throwing heavy enough to break it or kicking or hitting it hard enough to break it during a fight, seen it all before. So, I was a bit surprised when I got the screws out to drop the screen, that I found this situation:



I hadn't expected rocks inside the tv but I suppose this dumped Sony on the edge of a vacant lot looked like fun so let's start pitching. There was actually 4 rocks inside the tv but I'm sure the biggest one that is down in the corner did the most action. Made me smile a bit. I pitched the rocks into my rock border a round the house.

Scrapping a "newer" tv like this is sort of parting out a hatter beaver. The base metals; some copper bearing stuff, some aluminum (although the Nipponese used little alum in this build, cheap buggers), and steel are sort of the hatter pelt. But the electronic boards, o be sold as "e-scrap" are sort of the castor of the tv but no where even close to the price per pound paid for it. Then there usually a board or two that are crossovers, that have base metals for plucking (again, the Japanese were cheap only a few of the heat sinks here are alum) and have some e-waste scrap value. Anyway, it was a nice winter late afternoon to work in the garage and listen to some good tunes that I don't usually play in the house

Interesting project for sure.

I’d be lost give me then skunk butts any day. LOL

Interesting. How and where do you sell? Are taking out the metals and selling to a local scrap yard and then taking out the boards and selling them whole?

Yes to loosegoose's question.

I think the highwater mark of e-scrap has already gone past us, electronic mfg'ers are going for cheaper inputs and less precious metals or hard to get materials. But, there' still a good amount out there. Go to "Scrap metal forum" and check out the buyers section. Most will have list of what they pay for various items. I still don't know what many are actually called, just put similar looking stuff in a plastic bag and see how they figure it out. A person always wishes there were more high value-low weight items out there, such as gold memory "sticks" but that stuff is usually the first thing to disappear from a computer, especially a desk top is is easy to scrap-- laptop more of a pain. That, and the hard drive missing. I rarely pay for anything unless its a really good deal. People can't understand how their electronic that cost them a good piece of coin really has very little worth to it after its crapped out on them or they're tired of that version. Someone is making money somewhere. Sound familiar...?