"Initially, they were slow and shipping was expensive. Now, that has changed. They seem to get the order out in a day or 2. When I’ve purchased semiconductors, they have always been the real thing. The only thing you have to remember is that they primarily sell surplus parts, so if they run out it’s probably for good. Things to look out for, they do sell old stock of electrolytic capacitors. They may be okay for a personal project or experiments but make sure you test before use. The other is pricing on current parts, there’s a few where they charge as much or more as Digi-Key or Mouser on a current production part. The MJE182 is a good example. It’s currently $2.45 each from them and $0.81 from Mouser. In conclusion, with their reduced shipping rates, it’s an excellent surplus parts supplier overall."
"Out of 8 kits ordered to teach my grandson electronics, only 2 have been successfully completed. 1. No artwork on board to help with component layout. 2. Holes have to be drilled in order for components to seat on board. 3. Improper hardware supplied mix of metric and SAE hardware creating threading problems. 4. Insufficient theory and instructions to allow beginners to troubleshoot the project.
Have spent over $200 on kits. Spent hours checking soldering and components under 10X magnification verifying joints and proper component placement but the kits will not function. At this point I have no idea whether the supplied components are faulty or what the issue is. I have built the identical kits beside my grandson with the identical non working issues.
Would not recommend these kits for teaching beginners electronics."
"I have been on-line buying from EG for about 10 years. I mostly buy in bag quantities but also buy small quantities of parts that catch my fancy and entice me to build some circuits around that part. I have never had any negative purchase experience with them; just be sure to carefully read the descriptions so that you know what you are ordering. Their products are almost all new stock and I have never had any problems with oxidized contacts or stuck mechanisms. Shipping has been consistently accurate, fast and well-packed."
"I have placed numerous orders with Electronic Goldmine. I've had a perfect experience every time. Goods are well packed, good value and top quality delivered timely. No complaints at all. "
"11/19/2018: order placed, email confirmation rcv'd. 11/21: Credit card charged, shipping label created, email with tracking # rcv'd. 11/27: USPS accepts package. 11/30: package delivered. If we are to believe the USPS tracking data, it took 6 days for my order to get from EG to their local post office and 3 days to get from Scottsdale, Az to my home in Los Angeles, Ca. It might be coincidence, but 24 hrs after I called EG to check the status of my order, their post office accepted my package. Customer service was polite & professional.
All of the parts (JFETs, tantalum caps, Schottky diodes) were received well packaged and in excellent condition. The NOS JFETs were not available anywhere else in the US and were a good price. I expect to do business with EG again, but will stay on top of the shipping in case they don't.
Summary: parts selection - excellent; parts cost - very good; shipping cost - good; shipping time - needs improvement. "
"Ordered this on 9/4. Received it on 9/9. It is regularly $20 but was on sale for Labor Day for $9 + $7 S&H. A great deal, definitely 1000's of diodes as described. It came in a 4"x4"x4" box with diodes packed as densely as they could be. Most were smaller diodes on tape strips of 10-20 diodes, but there were some loose and larger ones in the bottom of the box. Almost all were marked with standard recognizable part numbers: 1N4743A, MR850, 1N5232B, 1N4002, 1N4742, 1N5263B, 1N5256A, 1N759A to name a few. The smaller ones appear to be an assortment of mostly zeners but a few switching type. Remember these are surplus and unsorted but this is a great deal if you want a lot of various diodes and are willing to search through the pile. As always in the past, I give EG 5 stars. "
"Placed and order with EG this week only to get an email from them saying they cancelled my order AND my account because I made some trouble for them about a year ago. Really? I called and asked what it was that caused this and they said it was an LG LED lighting panel. Ah ha!... I do recall that incident. They advertised it as producing white light, well the one I received lights up a bright purple, not white. They didn't want it back so I kept it and they refunded my $12. That happened a year ago and just now they are blackballing me? I've been buying from them since around 1990 and they are NOT to be trusted, especially their product descriptions and EG is NOT the same company I grew to love back in the 1990s."
"Not a bad store, they have cool hard to find parts as good prices... That is until you try to check out and they tack on a $15 shipping charge for 200 LED's. Holly Cow, You can ship 200 LED's for $3.00 or $6 if you send via priority mail (anywhere in the USA) I would buy so much more from these guys if they could get their shipping charges in line with the rest of the world"
"Let me preface this by saying I'm all about supporting the smaller companies out there...you know, the "mom 'n pop" stores of yesteryear which seem to be a dying breed...
Placed an order late night on March 11, and it was confirmed and marked shipped on March 12.
The website has a button to track the shipping, but it isn't clickable. Just there for show, I guess...
On March 15 (yes, 3 days later) I received an email from UPS letting me know I have a package coming. Hmmm....I thought it had shipped 3 days ago...The best part? Scheduled delivery is March 21!
Now, if the shipping was free, can't really complain, right?
Well, my shipping cost was $21.28. For a 5.8 lb box. Every item in the order is very small - there are no large/bulky items.
Newsflash, Electronic Goldmine....free shipping, or at least "minimum order" free shipping, is the de facto standard these days.
If you're going to charge through the nose for shipping, you better get that box out the door by the next day, with a 2-3 day delivery, max.
Steer clear of this place if you value your time and money."
"They have a great selection in parts, accessories, and great educational materials, but the shipping can be unaffordable, which makes the order hard to complete, and pushed aside if you're on tight budget."
"These people have to improve one thing. I have been ordering from them long before the web and have always found their products first class and fairly priced. Where they fall down is the shipping cost. If they they are trying to make money on shipping shame on them. They should just be honest and add a handling charge. They need to be informed about postal flat rate boxes that make a lot of shipping reasonable. I cancel 60% of my orders when I see the shipping costs. The surplus products they sell are purchased for pennies on the dollar (been it the business 20yrs) and I'm not against making a profit but when people cancel orders because of shipping cost you need to adjust something in your business model. I see a lot of complaints about shipping time. This is because Amazon has ruined it for all us small guys that sell on the net with their fast low cost shipping but not everybody has 200,000 employees and has surpassed Walmart in size, give them a break."
"Watch out or they will triple your shipping cost. I put in a order and checked out , paid with my card, received the below email telling me they received the order. Two days later I received a call letting me know if I wanted the order I would need to pay $143 for shipping.
STAY AWAY!!!!!!! this is actually the 2nd time this happen to me in 5 orders through them. The first time I figured it was just a glitch in their system. Now I see it a way to recover some cost when they put items on sale at a special price. I rechecked my orders with them and the other time this happen....I bought a item that was on sale at a lot lower price. Email I received confirming this order
Thank you for ordering from Electronic Goldmine.
ITEM# DESCRIPTION QTY TOTAL
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G18959 SALE! - FLOJET 60PSI Boat Washdown Pump40 $400.00
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G19641 4Ft 2 Cord 10Amp Extension Cord 30 $38.70
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SUB TOTAL: $438.70
TAX: $0.00
SHIPPING: $44.75 U.S. POSTAL SERVICE - (US CONTINENTAL ONLY)
ORDER TOTAL: $483.45
If you have questions about your order or shipment, contact our customer service
department at ***-***-**** between the hours of 8:30am and 4:00pm (Arizona
Time Zone - MNT)
Thank you for your order.
Sincerely,
Electronic Goldmine
Two days later I received a call letting me know if I wanted the order I would need to pay another $143 for shipping."
"I buy from them every few months, both in single and bulk quantity. Never an issue of any kind. They carry a couple of items that I haven't seen anywhere else and I order them regularly. Since they do deal in closeout merchandise and over stock, I do not expect them to always have something particular in stock but they have had every item that I have ordered. My personal take as a home hobby/electronics/ham radio operator is they have given me as good or better service as anyone I deal with and I have no financial interest etc. etc. Just a very satisfied customer.I will, I am certain order from them again when they have an item(s) I want or need.W5COV"
"Business ethics are terrible. They advertise products and prices they do not have or honor. When questioned about it, then say they have to take another call and hang up on you.
They use shipping cost as a profit center.
If you ever have any grievance with a product you received, do not bother to call them. Go directly to your credit card issuer and file a chargeback They do not respond to friendly resolution.
My credit card number has been stolen twice when I ordered from them. This is a card I only used at Electronic Goldmine. Like clockwork, 5 days after giving them my card number, I saw fraudulent charges on my card.
"
"Thought some curious people might come by and want to know how "The Goldmine" is doing nowadays. So far I have ordered from them twice, both times I ordered multiple surprise boxes, and a bunch of misc stuff I needed. Here are my impressions:
1. Item quality and price: So far I have gotten a metric ton of NOS vishay and Allen Bradley Resistors, 500 dollars worth of 0.01% resistors of various values, about 100 dollars worth of WIMA polyester/polycarbonate capacitors (even a few micas), a lot of headers and connectors (albeit without the matching parts) and a ton of other useful goodies, etc. in 3 of their 7.50$ surprise boxes. On the other hand 50% of their surprise boxes by weight are filled with absolute garbage (extremely old electrolytic caps, ICs with broken pins, and generally rubbish)
All other single items I have ordered were from "meh" manufacturers, but passable quality. Also, be aware that if you want specific transistors or ICs and you want them to work, you really should purchase from mouser or digi-key, none of the silicon that comes out of the goldmine should be trusted or be used for anything other than hobby tinkering.
Shipping is fast, but only once your package leaves the warehouse, which took 7 days the first time and 10 days the second time. They will wait until hey have a majority of your items, and only then ship the thing out. They only charge for stuff they ship, which might be 70% of all items you ordered - so never count on them if you absolutely need an item.
Shipping prices start at 12 and go up to 25 dollars for a medium 6 pound box shipped in the US, so rather expensive. Mouser ships the same for half the price, and awesome packaging, and with 2 day UPS!
Customer service was OK. I have made address changes, redirections, and order updates on the phone, but they were courteous every time. I never asked about item details though - please understand, the person answering you is not an application engineers - she's a secretary.
Packaging was "meh" too. Nothing was in shielded bags, not even transistors and ICs!!! Everything was crumpled and pushed and bent, but most electronic parts can take some physical abuse, so most were OK. If you are planning to order delicate stuff- please abstain; it will not arrive in one piece.
All in all, they are good if you want to stock up on some parts, or if you just love weird random NOS parts, and if you are not in a hurry or need a particular part. See them as a fun place to get fun stuff. For serious business go to Mouser. If you can't find a part there, try Digi-Key, and if they don't have it, then cough up some serious cash at Farnell/Element14."