I had a summer job at Hazeltine (back in the day!) One day they said, "Bill, we know you're interested in parts, and they're throwing out some wirewrap panels (over there) - are you interested?" Hell yeah; I figure the value of those panels was far larger than my salary for the entire summer... (Just for the panels; not counting that they were full of 4000 series CMOS that was generally useful, and not counting the design and labor that had gone into making them whatever they were before they became "trash.")
Freecycle has been mixed for me. I got no takers for a working HP2600 color laser printer (with no toner), which theoretically would have been good for parts, for example. (a full set of toner cartridges costs more than a new printer.)