MICROSCRAPPINGE-waste field guide
Boards · Tier C

Arcade PCBs / JAMMA Boards

A gold-plated 56-pin JAMMA edge with a title sticker or readable ROM labels is a $45–1,500 product; scrap it and you get $5.

Au 0.05–0.20 g per board ≈ 0.09 g/lbCu ~45 g/lbAu ceramic gold-lid customs (FD1094
eBay typical$30–800per lb
Refiner pays$5per lb
Metal in it$12.2per lb at 4 Aug 2026 spot
Confidencelowof the yield figures

How to spot it

Green or brown FR4 around 20 × 30 cm with gold fingers along one long edge — JAMMA is 28 contacts per side, 56 total, with a keying slot. Look for title silkscreen, ROM stickers, a Capcom/SNK/Sega/Konami/Namco/Taito logo, socketed EPROMs with UV windows and ceramic DIPs. Multi-board stacks are joined by ribbon or stacking headers.

Metal content

MetalQuantityNotes
Gold0.05–0.20 g per board ≈ 0.09 g/lb56-pin dual-sided JAMMA edge plus gold pins on ceramic customs. Derived from finger economics, no published assay
Copper~45 g/lbHeavy ground planes, $0.30–0.60/lb of board
Goldceramic gold-lid customs (FD1094, Namco): $150–400/lbSold as ceramic gold-top IC — but check the part first

At 4 Aug 2026 spot prices that works out to $12.2 per pound of contained metal — Gold 0.09 g = $11.7, Copper 45 g = $0.48. A refiner paying $5 returns about 41% of that, which is normal: refining costs money and the buyer takes a margin.

Safe removal

Working temperature: Hot air 330–360 °C, preheat 150 °C

Don't. If the title is verified worthless and the board is truly dead, desolder ceramic gold-lid customs with hot air at 330–360 °C or a 150 °C preheater plus an iron, and snip the JAMMA edge off with a bandsaw for the fingers stream. Cut battery leads with flush cutters — never desolder a lithium cell with an iron.

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.

🛢 PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)

NEVER puncture, drain, burn or bin a suspect unit. Burning PCBs produces dioxins and furans.

💥 CRT implosion, leaded glass, phosphor

NEVER pick up or carry a CRT by the neck.

⚡ Stored high voltage

NEVER short a large capacitor with a screwdriver. It welds the tip, blasts molten metal at your face, and can rupture the can.

💣 Electrolytic capacitor rupture

Don't heat a capacitor directly with hot air at close range.

Before you scrap it

6–150×. A working common title is $45–90 against $5 scrap; a working Major Havoc is $925–1,500 against $8. Non-working boards still fetch 30–40% of working. Always identify the title and test on a JAMMA supergun before any board leaves for scrap.

The common trap

Battery suicide. Capcom CPS-2 B-boards store the decryption key in battery-backed SRAM and die permanently when the 3.6 V cell dies; same on CPS-3 and Sega FD1089/FD1094 CPU modules. But Neo Geo MVS is not suicide — its battery only holds bookkeeping RAM, and that is the most-repeated arcade myth. Suicided boards can be desuicided (Infinikey-CPS2, Darksoft) and still hold 30–40% of working value. And 80s boards are not gold-rich: a typical board holds $10–25 of gold, not $200.

Questions

How much gold is in arcade pcbs / jamma boards?

Gold: 0.05–0.20 g per board ≈ 0.09 g/lb. Copper: ~45 g/lb. Gold: ceramic gold-lid customs (FD1094, Namco): $150–400/lb. At current spot that is about $12.2 of contained metal per pound.

How do you identify arcade pcbs / jamma boards?

A gold-plated 56-pin JAMMA edge with a title sticker or readable ROM labels is a $45–1,500 product; scrap it and you get $5.

How do you remove arcade pcbs / jamma boards safely?

Don't. If the title is verified worthless and the board is truly dead, desolder ceramic gold-lid customs with hot air at 330–360 °C or a 150 °C preheater plus an iron, and snip the JAMMA edge off with a bandsaw for the fingers stream. Cut battery leads with flush cutters — never desolder a lithium cell with an iron.

Is arcade pcbs / jamma boards worth more working than as scrap?

6–150×. A working common title is $45–90 against $5 scrap; a working Major Havoc is $925–1,500 against $8. Non-working boards still fetch 30–40% of working. Always identify the title and test on a JAMMA supergun before any board leaves for scrap.

Related in Boards

Cell phone boards Boards · $25–40/lb Au 0.09–0.50 g/lbAg 0.23–1.26 g/lbPd 0.025–0.07 g/lbCu 12–56% A Telecom / military boards Boards · $11–35/lb Au 0.3–4 g/lbAg 1–8 g/lbPd 0.02–0.3 g/lbCu 15–25% A Telecom backplanes Boards · $10–18/lb Au 1–3 g/lb wholeAg 0.5–2 g/lbCu 20–30% A Laptop motherboards Boards · $10–18/lb Au 0.20–0.50 g/lbAg 1–3 g/lbPd 0.02–0.08 g/lbCu 15–25% B Server motherboards Boards · $9–16/lb Au 0.05–0.3 g/lbAg 1–3 g/lbPd 0.02–0.10 g/lbCu 15–25% B Wire-wrap / pin boards Boards · $20–35/lb Au 0.6–1.5 g/lbAg 0.5–2 g/lbCu 20–30% B

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