How much gold is in an average Atari 2600 cart?

[homerwannabee]

I recently saw a post where CPUWIZ was referring to the connectors of a Atari 2600 as beeing gold plated. That got me to thinking. Right now at the current market price I think gold is at around $650 an ounce. Even if there is only 1/100 of an ounce of gold in every Atari 2600 cart that would make $6.50 worth of gold in every cart. Or even if it was 1/250 of an ounce you would still have around $2.50 worth of gold. If this is the case, there actually might be some value in a Combat cart after all.

[crunchysuperman]

Typical gold plating thickness on edge connectors is around 40 microinches (.00004") I don't know the exact size of each connector off the top of my head to do the math, but it ain't gonna amount to much.

Edited April 3, 2007 by crunchysuperman

[homerwannabee]

Typical gold plating thickness on edge connectors is around 40 microinches (.00004") I don't know the exact size of each connector off the top of my head to do the math, but it ain't gonna amount to much.

That helps out a little bit. There are 24 connectors so 24X.00004=.00144 which means that it would take about 700 combat carts to make an area of one connector an inch long. Now here is the tricky part how much does an area of a connector weigh an inch long. I would guess that an ounce coin would make up about 4 of these. If this is the case than 700 combat carts would have about 1/4 ounce. In this case 2800 combat carts would make up one ounce of gold. If an ounce of gold=$650 than we would divide 2800 into $650. Which would mean that there is 23 cents worth of Gold in each Combat cart in the connectors. So my guess is that Gold would literally have to jump up 10 times in value before anyone would think of stripping Combat carts for their gold.

[phaxda]

This is the kind of thread that makes me love AtariAge.

 

It also proves to my girlfriend that I am relatively sane.

[stop_rebel_scum]

guys, guys... all atari games are basically golden

[crunchysuperman]

Ok, turns out the edge connections are 2mm x 4mm, or .079" x .157". With a gold plating thickness of .00004", that gives us an area of .00000496 cubic inches. 24k gold weighs 1204 pounds per cubic foot, or .696 pounds per cubic inch. Therefore, the gold on each contact weighs .00000345 pounds, or .0000414 ounces. If we're gonna say that gold is $650 an ounce, then each contact is worth about $.02. 24 contacts gives us $.48 per cartridge.

 

Of course, there's no way that the contacts are plated with 24k gold - more likely much lower grade that would make it nearly worthless.

[Gregory DG]

Wow. Modern day prospectors!

 

"Git away from my gold ye durn claim jumpers!"

 

[Omegamatrix]

This is the kind of thread that makes me love AtariAge.

 

It also proves to my girlfriend that I am relatively sane.

[crunchysuperman]

God, I'm such a geek!

[homerwannabee]

Ok, turns out the edge connections are 2mm x 4mm, or .079" x .157". With a gold plating thickness of .00004", that gives us an area of .00000496 cubic inches. 24k gold weighs 1204 pounds per cubic foot, or .696 pounds per cubic inch. Therefore, the gold on each contact weighs .00000345 pounds, or .0000414 ounces. If we're gonna say that gold is $650 an ounce, then each contact is worth about $.02. 24 contacts gives us $.48 per cartridge.

 

Of course, there's no way that the contacts are plated with 24k gold - more likely much lower grade that would make it nearly worthless.

Wow, so in effect the gold is worth more than the combat cart. Also, what about the parker brothers carts. Here is a picture posted in another thread. It shows Parker Brothers cart an Activision cart and an combat Cart. Notice how the Parker Brothers connectors are atleast twice as big. Which would be about $1.00 worth of gold. Hmm maybe it's time to start picking up the Amidar carts at swap meets. Also if you notice the activision cart has a couple little gold rings inside I wonder how much that is worth and the Combat also has a gold ring on the bottom as well. It would be interesting to see who would buy Atari 2600 carts if they were advertised as having gold in them.

[The MindMaster]

Perhaps when they burned all those E.T. carts in the desert, the gold melted into a big nugget.

[Goochman]

Next thing we'll see is a bunch of Trekkies panning for gold with Atari carts over a river somewhere

 

[jaybird3rd]

Do any of the traces (under the solder mask) on the PCB contain any gold, or just the edge connector? I scraped off some of the solder mask on one of my Atari boards, and the exposed traces seemed to be gold-plated as well. That would probably add some value to the board (although not very much).

[homerwannabee]

I know one thing though. Next time someone says "I can't believe you spent that much on a piece of plastic" I will say' I also spent it on a little bit of gold as well."

[DanBoris]

Ok, turns out the edge connections are 2mm x 4mm, or .079" x .157". With a gold plating thickness of .00004", that gives us an area of .00000496 cubic inches. 24k gold weighs 1204 pounds per cubic foot, or .696 pounds per cubic inch. Therefore, the gold on each contact weighs .00000345 pounds, or .0000414 ounces. If we're gonna say that gold is $650 an ounce, then each contact is worth about $.02. 24 contacts gives us $.48 per cartridge.

 

Of course, there's no way that the contacts are plated with 24k gold - more likely much lower grade that would make it nearly worthless.

 

You also have to take into account the cost of recovering that gold, it may end up that the cost of recovering the gold is actually more then the gold itself is worth.

 

Dan

[Omegamatrix]

My retirement fund.

 

 

[Shawn]

My retirement fund.

 

 

 

 

Hey Jeff you wanna sell me the houses those nakkked bitches came from

 

Shawn

[Shawn]

Wow. Modern day prospectors!

 

"Git away from my gold ye durn claim jumpers!"

 

 

 

It was a pretty active thing in the late 80's and early 90's with XT and AT motherboards being melted down in some parts of China for the gold as the older computers had MUCH more gold used on the traces of the PCB.

[CPUWIZ]

I think you guys are all forgetting that they are gold plated, not solid gold.

[Video]

That's interesting. You know gold's fixing to go up about 50% or so, that might pull the plating up to $1 per cart (assuming the figures of around 65cents per cart are right)

 

Also, is the gold plating process done to just the contacts (or after the cart is waterproofed) or is the entier thing plated befor the green waterproffing is put on? That could increase the ammount in one quiet a bit if the later.

 

As for the process of getting gold out, it's the same as with ore, you dump a shitload of it into a crusher, and burn it in a big pot and scrape the cheap crap (that didn't burn) off the top. I don't know what it costs to purify gold that way, but it'd still be quiet a bit.

[A.J. Franzman]

Typical gold plating thickness on edge connectors is around 40 microinches (.00004")

I think you guys are all forgetting that they are gold plated, not solid gold.

[Robert M]

Ok, turns out the edge connections are 2mm x 4mm, or .079" x .157". With a gold plating thickness of .00004", that gives us an area of .00000496 cubic inches. 24k gold weighs 1204 pounds per cubic foot, or .696 pounds per cubic inch. Therefore, the gold on each contact weighs .00000345 pounds, or .0000414 ounces. If we're gonna say that gold is $650 an ounce, then each contact is worth about $.02. 24 contacts gives us $.48 per cartridge.

 

Of course, there's no way that the contacts are plated with 24k gold - more likely much lower grade that would make it nearly worthless.

 

I think your calculations are off.

 

Using the numbers you gave:

 

0.79" x .157" x 0.00004" = 0.00000496 cubic inches per contact.

0.696 pounds per cubic inch of gold = 11.148 oz. per cubic inch.

11.148 x 0.00000496 = 0.0000553 oz of gold per contact

24 contacts x 0.0000553 oz per contact = 0.0013272 oz of gold per cartridge

0.0013272 oz * $650 per oz = $0.86 per cartridge

[homerwannabee]

Ok, turns out the edge connections are 2mm x 4mm, or .079" x .157". With a gold plating thickness of .00004", that gives us an area of .00000496 cubic inches. 24k gold weighs 1204 pounds per cubic foot, or .696 pounds per cubic inch. Therefore, the gold on each contact weighs .00000345 pounds, or .0000414 ounces. If we're gonna say that gold is $650 an ounce, then each contact is worth about $.02. 24 contacts gives us $.48 per cartridge.

 

Of course, there's no way that the contacts are plated with 24k gold - more likely much lower grade that would make it nearly worthless.

 

I think your calculations are off.

 

Using the numbers you gave:

 

0.79" x .157" x 0.00004" = 0.00000496 cubic inches per contact.

0.696 pounds per cubic inch of gold = 11.148 oz. per cubic inch.

11.148 x 0.00000496 = 0.0000553 oz of gold per contact

24 contacts x 0.0000553 oz per contact = 0.0013272 oz of gold per cartridge

0.0013272 oz * $650 per oz = $0.86 per cartridge

 

Wow if that is the case, then a parker brothers cart which has more than twice the gold contacts would be $1.70 per cart in gold. And if Gold really goes up another 50 percent like another poster said than the parker brothers carts would be $2.55 in gold. Also I am starting to think that activision put gold in besides the connectors especially in the bottom part.

Edited April 5, 2007 by homerwannabee

[A.J. Franzman]

0.79" x .157" x 0.00004" = 0.00000496 cubic inches per contact.

0.696 pounds per cubic inch of gold = 11.148 oz. per cubic inch.

11.148 x 0.00000496 = 0.0000553 oz of gold per contact

24 contacts x 0.0000553 oz per contact = 0.0013272 oz of gold per cartridge

0.0013272 oz * $650 per oz = $0.86 per cartridge

Did you use *troy* pounds and ounces? If not, you may need another conversion step or two.

[CPUWIZ]

I got a bucket or two of 5200 PCB's, if anyone wants to make an offer.