I am interested in an old style dimmer board. I had three (yes three) being removed from a school system in my area. My company did not win the bid, but I contacted the successful EC and was assured I could have one. I offered to remove for free and even pay a small sum for them.
I never heard from them again and my calls went unanswered. I am sure they went in the trash. These are typicaly in school auditoriums and theatres. I can offer some compensation. This is for my rumpus room.

I bet someone saw the copper and scrapped them.

I bet you're right. I would have paid scrap + and removed to boot.

Rabbit, while it may be too late, have you attempted to contact the school board personnel? They might have a clue as to where it is and most school systems these days would be happy to take a few extra bucks. Maybe they can track them down for you.

One would think so, but a friend of mine almost got fired for selling off unused (sat in storage for 4 years) equipment from the theatre. It's not like he took the money for himself; the administration found out when the check arrived, yet they still considered it "theft" of district property. Words cannot express my disdain for this policy, as the equipment in question would have sat in storage for another 30 years, until being thrown out (literally, in the dumpster, regardless of operating condition) during the next remodel.

I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't try elesewhere, but make sure what you're doing is within the rules or else you could be putting someone's job on the line.

Unless a district sends it to scrap or a landfill, I think that CA districts have to put surplus up for bid.

I wanted the stainless steel heat exchanger out of a water cooled computer the county was throwing away. Long story short, there was no way they could sell it to me or to give it to me. The thing had to be crushed with the rest of the machines. Such is how governments work.
After it was all over the DP manager told me I should have just taken it and never told anyone but I couldn't do that.

I wonder if they crush the hard Drive along with the Computer or remove those first.

This was a mainframe and the "hard drive" was 24 3380s. Yes they did crush the HDAs when they crushed the drives but these are not really something your average hacker can read anyway ... unless you have a mainframe and a 3380.
The HDA is 2 feet long and weighs about 80 lb with 11 14" platters. The voice coil magnets (2 per side) are the size of pavers.

Yeah, It's too late to get from the owner. When will I ever learn some people lie like breathing air?

My friend just got done building an enclosed sunroom at his house for practically zero cost. His neighbor is a construction superintendent for a major new home builder. A potential home buyer had ordered custom windows instead of the standard ones, so they pulled out the originals and installed the "better ones". The superintendent then held on to the original windows for the next home, or so he thought.

During a monthly management visit to the development, he was told to dispose of the windows, as in dumpster. He resisted and explained that they had only been tacked in place and were in perfect condition. Policy was policy, so he did what he was told to do, which was to place them (gently) into the dumpster for next week's pickup. My friend then went by the site and raided the dumpster three days later and got about $2,000.00 worth of brand-new windows, along with two kitchen cabinets that each had a scratch on one side and two light fixtures that had a simple piece of missing glass.

Two months later, the superintendent got fired for insubordination when he argued about throwing away perfectly-good material that could have easily been reused, sold or even donated.

What is wrong with big companies today?

Sounds like a lot of stuff getting dumpstered, that could easily be donated to a worthy cause, such as Habitat For Humanity..

The insane amount of petty waste that occurs in governments and corporations is repulsive. Especially in today's world, where everyone is concerned about being "green", and with the money panic, I should think that selling/donating usable surplus equipment and recuperating costs would be encouraged. But, such organizations lack the practicality of smaller ones.

When my wife was building back in the "get it done" days, closing a million bucks a week, they threw away an unbelievable amount of stuff. My kitchen cabinets are all "trash" along with all the block and steel in our addition, cubes of pavers we have used around the house for various things and all the small hardware a person would ever need.

As a life long curb side shopper / dumpster diver, I am apalled at the amount of functional equipment and materials that are tossed. IMHO, the greatest source of waste is the TAX CODE! The company writes down the value of items until they are "worth" $0. At that point, if they donate it to anybody, the value must be worth something greater than $0, therefore the previous depriciation has to be corrected. Too much paperwork, therefore just toss it.
Plus if somebody gets injured while in the dumpster or on the property, the company is liable. Therefore we must ensure all disposed equipment is disabled/destroyed, the dumpsters must be locked up, and the property posted and patrolled.

Larry C

It gets better than that. If the company had realized the value of the windows after the super put them in the trash, and decided that the super shouldn't have trashed them, well, that would be "malicious compliance".

Well, I got one! Circa 1947 stage dimming board.
It has nine 4000 watt variacs in it. A couple variacs have been hot and the potting between the windings is gone. This renders them useless because the brushes hang at that point.
I would like to re-pot these. Any suggestions?

Norcal...

There have been firings in Northern California over this issue. I forget if it was Oakland or Sacramento, but two fellows were canned for pocketing ALL of the scrap value for years from old electrical equipment.

For your amusement, really old electrical gear is unlikely to use any aluminum. Instead you'll find copper, silver and tin.

Aluminum bussing never took off until its price came down -- a lot. That was a post WWII event.

Government procurement, however, was slow to change. So government purchased electrical anything stayed with copper decades after aluminum took over the commercial field.

The cashed out scrap that the above fellows junked was estimated to be in the millions. ( They sat at the top of the system. Now that the Feds are insisting on 1099s for scrap merchants some boys are in for a shock.)

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Rabbit:

Talk to a re-winding shop. If they can't do it they'll know who can.