Other · Tier C

POS & Payment Terminals

The keypad is the tell — peel the dome sheet and the good ones show a full grid of gold-plated snap domes, denser gold than most consumer boards of the same weight.

Au 0.05–0.20 g/lbCu 10–18 g/lbBase tamper coin cell on every board

eBay typical$8–30per lb

Refiner pays$1.5per lb

Metal in it$15.8per lb at 4 Aug 2026 spot

Confidencelowof the yield figures

How to spot it

VeriFone, Ingenico, Hypercom, PAX credit-card terminals; receipt-printer bases; barcode scanners and their decoder boards ride along. Older (2000s) units have thicker boards and more gold; chip-and-PIN era units add a security mesh wrapping the processor — that mesh flex is gold-traced.

Metal content

Metal	Quantity	Notes
Gold	0.05–0.20 g/lb	Security modules, keypad dome sheets and dense boards — estimated, no published assay
Copper	10–18 g/lb	Cables, magnetic read heads, PSU
Base metal	tamper coin cell on every board	Pull it — lithium, and it corrodes

At 4 Aug 2026 spot prices that works out to $15.8 per lb of contained metal — Gold 0.12 g = $15.7, Copper 14 g = $0.15. A refiner paying $1.5 per lb returns about 9% of that, which is normal: refining costs money and the buyer takes a margin.

Safe removal

Working temperature: No heat needed — mechanical teardown only

Torx security bits open most. Board out whole to mid/high-grade, dome sheets peeled into the gold-foil bag, mag-head and cables to copper. The tamper battery kills the unit for resale once dead — which is why so many clean-looking terminals are scrap in the first place.

Hazards

🔥 Lithium battery fire

A standard ABC extinguisher will NOT stop a runaway lithium cell. Don't count on one.

☠ Lead — dust more than fume

NEVER dry sweep or use compressed air on a scrapping bench. HEPA-vac or wet-wipe only.

Before you scrap it

Thin — tamper systems brick resale for most. Unlocked/developer units and new-in-box terminals sell $30–100; barcode scanners (Symbol/Zebra, Honeywell) do better at $20–80 working. Everything else: strip and grade the boards.

The common trap

These flow through commercial e-waste in volume and nobody grades them up — they ride the shred line at low-grade prices while carrying mid/high-grade boards. The catch cuts both ways: tamper-locked units have near-zero resale, so the board value is the value.

Questions

How much gold is in pos & payment terminals?

Gold: 0.05–0.20 g/lb. Copper: 10–18 g/lb. At current spot that is about $15.8 of contained metal per pound.

How do you identify pos & payment terminals?

The keypad is the tell — peel the dome sheet and the good ones show a full grid of gold-plated snap domes , denser gold than most consumer boards of the same weight.

How do you remove pos & payment terminals safely?

Is pos & payment terminals worth more working than as scrap?

Related in Other

Gold-Filled Watch Cases & Bands Other · $200–500/lb Au 4–10 g/lb for clean marked GFBase brass core S Laboratory Platinum Ware Other · $20000–32000/lb Pt ~454 g/lb — it is solid metalAu 5% in Pt-5%Au XRF fusion cruciblesBase Rh 5–10% in Pt-Rh crucibles S Noble Thermocouple Wire (Type R/S/B) Other · $18000–31000/lb Pt ~410 g per lb of bare noble wireBase Rh 6–30% of one legBase Type K/J/T/E/N: zero PGM S Precious-Metal Sputtering Targets Other · $32000–50000/lb Au ~454 g/lb — the target is solid metalPt 138 g in a 2 in × 0.125 in discPd 77 g in a 2 in × 0.125 in disc S Silver-Oxide Button Cells Other · $40–120/lb Ag ~30–35% by weight ≈ 150 g/lbBase Zn anode ~25%Base LR/AG alkaline S Sterling & Silver-Plated Flatware Other · $700–2000/lb Ag 92.5% ≈ 420 g/lb sterlingAg hollow-handle knives: only 8–20 g per pieceAg silver plate: ~0.1–0.5 g per teaspoon S

Get this offline → The full guide runs in your browser with no signal, and you can add your own photos.