Replying to a message of James Bradley to Jay Emrie:

 JB> ...Then I realize how good we have it here. CRT, and computer
 JB> recycling depots are located around our city. These are typically
 JB> attached to second hand computer stores, as few of those as they are
 JB> these days. There is also a "everything electronics" recycler.
 JB> Depending who is working there, they do or do not recover gold from
 JB> electrical contacts and the like.

A couple of decades ago the government decided to dispose of a no-longer-in-use
but functional Data General computer system.  Sixteen computer tape drives, four
printers, disk/drum units, memory units and processors.  The whole thing covered a
couple of hundred square feet of floor space.  Somebody bid $100K for the whole pile
and the government turned it down, claiming that the gold in the contacts was worth
more than that.  So over a period of many months individual units would vanish to a
work area where government employees broke them down.  To shorten a long story, it
cost the government more to do that than they recovered from the sale of valuable
metals and components recovered from the units.

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