I worked in DRAM salvage from 1987-88. It became niche profitable to harvest 4116s from years-old boards (4164s if you could get them) and put them right back into 256K memory expansion boards for PC ATs.

256K bytes of RAM that way made us $128 in sales. I earned $3.35 an hour. Any inventory I accumulated went out the door next morning.

It was a brief moment, but it makes me wonder if we'll see refurbished memory in fashion next year.

BTW the company, OEM Parts, was one of the last great surplus shops, surviving until just recently. Probably there were still cardboard bins with my handwriting for all the TTL chips that weren't in demand.