How much gold would you guess could be in (1) Western Electric Dimension cabinet w/ 5 shelves full of cards?

I have about 15 large cabinets (System 2000) and 6 small cabs (Dimension 100 I think) full of cards, 10 Horizons full and enough cards to build another 6-8 systems plus tons of ITT 1A2 systems. :shhh:

Hi,

I have no idea how much gold would be in those items, but I would implore you to not scrap it out, but either save it or sell it to those who would preserve it for future generations. I do this with Teletype technology and WECO phones.

Best,

Joe

I suggest that you ask on the ATCA or TCI forums. There are a couple of guys there who BUY used circuit boards, expressly for the scrap value, which apparently is high.

What a waste, the only thing wrong with those systems was; they would not pass data, except by dialing out and back in again due to the PAM network.

They are gold plated so I doubt much gold on each card so it depends on how many cards you have.

I remember years ago the Western Electric installers would cut the tips off wire spring relays for the same reason. I don't remember how many, but I know it was a lot to get one ounce, as in many pounds of the flat contact tips. You're talking a very small piece of material so it probably took hundreds if not thousands of relays to get the require amount.

You guys would love to see my dad’s collection. I went in to telecom out of high school in 88. My dad took early retirement from Southern Bell in 85 and started servicing ATT accounts. Every time a customer upgraded to a System 75 the customer would allow us to take the old stuff away. I have moved these systems 4-5 times and you know how heavy these suckers are.
I guess look for the ATCA TCI group?? And call local refineries. I have to do something next few years., it cost $500 per ton to dispose of this type stuff and that price will only go up as time goes by.

The old Leich Boards had gold on the bars in the top cage. The telco that I worked for used to save these bars and send them to company that would recover the gold off them. It was said they made a lot of money even at a couple of hundred bucks an oz.

When I was in High School, Western Electric built a phone recyling center here (in Gaston SC I think).

I worked one summer constructing concrete
forms to pour footings for an expansion.

There were literally acers of mounds of different kinds of telephones piled higher than my head, Wire of all sorts and any sort of PBX and etc etc equipment you could name.

It all went into a sorting shed on a conveyor where the plastic was stripped out and the metal went into various smelters. They shipped out lots of copper ingots and occasionally some gold ingots. The first gold ingot they produced was a big deal in the papers with politicians all a smiling.

I remember thinking at the time "Geeze, what a shame to grind up all these neat looking old phones."

Now that the bell system broke up, its empty and a superfund toxic cleanup site.

Yep it was Gaston:

In 1987, four secondary copper smelters were in operation: ...and a facility located in Gaston, SC, that was owned by American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) until 1990 when it was purchased by Southwire Co. In 1987, estimated smelter capacities were... 85,000 kkg for the
AT&T facility (Edelstein, 1999). In 1995, only three of these four facilities were in operation. The Southwire facility in Gaston (previously owned by AT&T) was closed in January 1995....The facility in Gaston, South Carolina, was in operation during 1987, but not in 1995. Prior to 1990, when this facility was owned by AT&T, the plant processed a great deal of high-plastics-content scrap (such as whole telephones). This scrap was fed to a pyrolysis unit prior to entering the blast furnace. In addition to a blast furnace, the facility also had an oxidizing reverberatory furnace for processing higher purity scrap.

It's a crime I tell you!

Melting down old phones? That makes me just about sick!
of course back then the then current models had very little collector value, I'd imagine.

A crime indeed!