Episode 8
“Copper, huh…”
It wasn’t a lot of copper per board, but the price of copper was high enough to make it worthwhile.
“But how do I extract it? I can’t have workers peeling it off by hand. The labor costs would be astronomical.”
Still, it seemed like there had to be a way to salvage it. It was too valuable to simply discard.
He tried removing the chips from the board and breaking them in half, but all he got was a puff of gray powder. He couldn’t even tell what they were made of.
“What’s in these things?” he wondered.
One of the biggest lessons he had learned in this business was that the real money lay in what others overlooked, in what they didn’t understand.
He was making over 10 million won a month by dealing with materials that everyone else shunned. For a high school graduate like him, this was a remarkable achievement.
“Time to do some research.”
He had studied engineering, but electronics was a complete mystery to him.
He spent a day at the library, poring over books, but while they provided detailed information about the functionality and performance of chips, they offered no insight into their composition.
“So they’re called IC(Integrated Circuit) chips,” he muttered, closing a book. “And they’re used in computers and other electronic devices. Great.”
“Is this a wild goose chase?” he wondered, feeling a twinge of frustration.
“If I don’t know something, I find out,” he said, his determination returning.
He started visiting electronics companies in the Ansan Industrial Complex, asking around, but the workers he encountered, mostly low-level assistants, were clueless.
“Maybe it’s time to give up. One last shot: Wooyoung Tech. They supply semiconductor companies, maybe they’ll know something. If not, I’m done.”
He hadn’t had high hopes for this endeavor, so he was ready to move on. He had too much on his plate to get bogged down with this.
Wooyoung Tech supplied plastic molds for semiconductor packaging. It wasn’t directly related to IC chip manufacturing, but he figured it was worth a shot.
“Hello,” he greeted the worker at the front desk.
“Park Sajangnim! Welcome! Is it collection day already?” It was Assistant Manager Lee, someone he had dealt with a few times before.
“Not today. I had a quick question.”
“Sure, what is it? I’m a bit busy, so make it quick.”
“It’s about this.” Sol pulled out the broken circuit board and the IC chip. “I need to know what this is made of.”
Assistant Manager Lee took them, examined them briefly, and said, “That’s a circuit board and an IC chip. Looks like it’s from a computer.”
“Wow, you know your stuff! Do you know what it’s made of?”
“I think circuit boards like these use gold, silver, and copper to improve electrical conductivity. Small amounts, but they’re in there.”
Sol felt like he had been struck by lightning.
“Gold? Like the gold used in jewelry?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Alarm bells went off in his head. He thanked Assistant Manager Lee and rushed back to Chunha Resources, his heart pounding with excitement. His instincts were screaming.
“Jackpot!”
But his excitement was premature. The thought of extracting gold and selling it for a fortune was exhilarating, but his research revealed that it wasn’t feasible yet.
The copper was definitely there, along with traces of gold and silver. But the technology to extract them efficiently hadn’t been commercialized yet.
There were rumors of something called “urban mining” being developed in Japan and the United States, but nothing concrete.
“Well, people aren’t stupid. Someone would have figured it out by now.”
He was disappointed, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was onto something big.
“This is going to be huge someday.”
Electronic devices were becoming increasingly sophisticated, and their lifespans were getting shorter.
The transition from 386 to 486 computers was in full swing, and more and more 386 computers were ending up in scrapyards.
For now, the volume was too small to justify the effort, and he was too busy with other things. But as the volume increased, someone would figure out a way to extract those valuable metals.
“Alright, time to let it go. Focus on what’s working.”
He put the circuit board out of his mind and turned his attention to the insurance company auctions.
As the owner had said, these auctions did exist. But he soon learned that only a select group of companies were allowed to bid on salvaged vehicles.
“This stinks of collusion,” he thought, frowning.
More bidders meant higher prices, but only five companies were allowed to participate in these auctions.
The only auctions open to outsiders like him were for fire-damaged goods, mostly from restaurants, shops, and factories.
“Those exclusive vehicle auctions are where the real money is. Bidding on restaurant scraps… burnt chairs, tables, kitchenware… that doesn’t sound very exciting.”
The auction was still two weeks away, but he received a list of the available items.
He could inspect the items beforehand, either at the insurance company’s warehouse or at the fire-damaged sites, but the sheer volume was overwhelming.
“Five pages of listings, 30 items per page… 150 items! There are that many fires in Korea?”
Most of the items were from restaurants, shops, and supermarkets. His enthusiasm waned as he scanned the list, but a few factory listings caught his eye.
“A product warehouse for a cable manufacturing company. Now that’s interesting.”
Cables consisted of copper wires encased in insulation. The insulation was easy to remove, and the bare copper could be sold for a high price, 800-900 won per kilogram, even at a local scrapyard.
And since it had been damaged in a fire, the insulation would have melted away, leaving behind pure copper.
He would need to assess the quantity of cable stored in the warehouse, but this could be worth tens of millions of won, maybe even hundreds of millions.
“Too rich for my blood,” he sighed, reluctantly letting it go.
If he had more capital, he would take a gamble, but for now, it was out of reach.
The next item that caught his eye was a listing for a bicycle frame manufacturing company. In this case, it wasn’t just the warehouse that had been damaged, but the entire production line.
“Aluminum, most likely. Still a hefty investment, but much more manageable.”
There would be machinery as well, plenty of scrap metal. And unlike a warehouse full of finished products, the volume of aluminum frames wouldn’t be as overwhelming.
“I have 10 million won in the bank, and I could get another 5 million with a loan against my land. That’s 15 million… not enough. Well, I’ll check it out. Let’s mark this one.”
He continued scanning the list, but nothing else piqued his interest. There were a few more factories, but nothing that excited him.
“Alright, time to check out the bicycle factory and the insurance company’s warehouse.”
He drove to the bicycle factory, but a quick glance at the fire-damaged site was enough to send him back to his truck. This was no small operation.
“What kind of bicycle frame company is this big?” he wondered, staring at the sprawling complex.
The fire-damaged production line alone was ten times larger than his entire scrapyard. And there were over ten such buildings.
“This is way out of my league. I wouldn’t even be able to afford the scrap metal, even at the lowest price. This business is tough.”
He sighed and drove to the insurance company’s warehouse, a massive structure located on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.
Countless piles of charred debris, blackened beyond recognition, formed small mountains, each marked with a numbered sign.
He was supposed to cross-reference the numbers with his list.
“Number 4… that’s ‘Happy Restaurant’.”
He hadn’t even considered bidding on the restaurant items, but the pile looked surprisingly promising.
“That looks like a freezer. And that’s a refrigerator, and an air conditioner. Mostly tables and chairs, but if I factor in the scrap metal value, it might be worth a shot.”
He spotted spoons and chopsticks peeking out from the debris. A restaurant would have a lot of those. Stainless steel cutlery had a decent resale value.
He made his way through the piles, jotting down rough estimates on his list. He skipped a supermarket listing; all that remained were burnt-out shelves, the snacks and drinks reduced to ash.
He arrived at pile number 87.
“Hmm…”
This one was from a restaurant, but the volume was three or four times larger than the other restaurant listings. He spotted three refrigerators, and there could be more buried beneath the debris. This must have been a large establishment.
“‘Jane & Work Family Restaurant’. A Western-style restaurant, huh? I even see some knives.”
He had never been to a fancy restaurant like that. He never imagined he’d encounter one in this state.
“I have a good feeling about this one.”
A large restaurant like that would have a lot of tableware. Maybe some of it was even high-end, the kind he could clean up and sell at a flea market.
He thought back to his first scrapyard purchase, the folding table.
“This feels right. I’m bidding on this one.”
Auction day arrived, and he submitted his sealed bids.
He had been generous with his bid for Jane & Work, driven by his gut feeling. But he played it safe with the other bids. After seeing the bicycle factory, he had lowered his expectations.
Two days later, he received a call from the insurance company. He had won four bids. More than he had expected, but he couldn’t celebrate just yet. He had no idea if he had overpaid or made a good deal.
“Number 4, ‘Happy Restaurant’. Number 21, ‘Sooki’s Snack Bar’. Number 54, ‘Samgyetang Specialty Restaurant’. And… Jane & Work.”
He was relieved that he had won the Jane & Work bid. He had high hopes for that one.
He drove his 5-ton truck to the warehouse and loaded up his winnings. It took two trips to haul everything back to his scrapyard.
“I hope this is worth the gas money,” he muttered, feeling exhausted. “This truck is a guzzler.”
He handed out gloves and masks to his workers and started hosing down the debris, trying to remove the thick layer of ash.
“Cough, cough, cough! This is brutal!”
The dust was overwhelming, even with a mask. He decided to wash everything down first, then sort through it later.
Once the debris was somewhat clean and the shapes were discernible, they began sorting.
“Break down the tables and chairs and pile them over there. We’ll use them for firewood this winter. Move anything that needs dismantling, like the refrigerators, to that side. And bring all the tableware to me. I need to check the material.”
The first pile, from Happy Restaurant, was unremarkable. He had bid 200,000 won and estimated a profit of around 100,000 won. Just as he had expected.
The second pile, from Sooki’s Snack Bar, was even less impressive. He had bid 150,000 won and wasn’t sure if he would even make 50,000 won profit. There wasn’t much tableware, and the scrap metal value was low.
But the third pile, from the Samgyetang Specialty Restaurant, brought a smile to his face.
“Brass bowls! This is a nice surprise!”
As a Samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) restaurant, they had used brass bowls for everything: spoons, chopsticks, side dishes, even the main dish.
The bowls were heavy and plentiful, at least double what he had estimated. He had bid 300,000 won, but he expected to make over a million won profit.
“Excellent! This should cover labor costs and a few nice meals.”
With the first three piles sorted, he turned his attention to the final one: Jane & Work. He had bid a whopping 1 million won for this lot.
It was the largest pile, and the sorting was taking a while. He left his workers to it and retreated to his office. Maru returned from his factory run.
“Anything good today? Wow, look at all this ash! Your faces are covered in soot, hyung!”
“This is what it takes to make money, Maru. It’s alright, we’ll break even at least.”
Maru unloaded his haul and headed back out. The workers had made significant progress with the Jane & Work pile.
Sol picked up a spoon from a set of tableware and wiped it clean with a damp cloth.
“Stainless steel, I think. It’s silver-colored.”
Maru peered over his shoulder. “Stainless steel? It doesn’t look like stainless steel to me. The color is lighter.”
Sol put down the spoon and picked up a knife, wiping it clean.
“This one too. It’s different from the stainless steel I’m used to.”
“The color is amazing, hyung. Is that silver?”
Sol stared at Maru. “Silver?”
He looked back at the knife.
“Huh?”