Copper.

[biker_bill]

About 12 years ago, when I was an electrician, I took about $1500 worth of copper to Newell in Hapeville. Was good money but I did spend the time stripping the insulation off. Not doing that again. I don't even remember having to show my ID to get paid. My, how times have changed.

The guys that sold copper when I was a kid would just throw motors and such in a fire, then take the copper to the junk yard. Every time someone would junk a washing machine, dryer, refrigerator it was money to those guys. They would just rip them out and throw them in the fire. Later they would pick out the hunks of copper.....

 

[msg723]

I did burn a little bit of it but somebody told me that they give a discounted rate for burned copper then. I didn't confirm that to be true or not, but I just stripped the rest.

 

[jmartinroe]

Anyone out there ever sell copper? I stripped an investment property before it was destroyed. Anyone out there have experience with taking it in and getting money for it? Is it even worth it?

I sold a bunch of scrape metal. I went to Newell Recycling and signed up with them. They want your drivers license and once you are signed up they give you a card so you don't have to go thru the hassles again. Depending on how much you have and where you are it is worth it. You can buy more brass with the money from your copper.

 

[jmartinroe]

Anyone out there ever sell copper? I stripped an investment property before it was destroyed. Anyone out there have experience with taking it in and getting money for it? Is it even worth it?

Two companies that I know of that will take wire with insulation on them.
Blaze Recycling And Metals
1882 Mitchell Rd, Norcross, GA 30071
(770) 447-0175

http://encorerecycling.net/
6781 Chapman Rd Lithonia, GA 30058

 

[Whitey]

They are no longer allowed to take burned copper. Burning it is really stupid, even a knucklehead like me can see how bad that is for the environment. We used to strip our copper, even have a couple of stripping machines. Then one day my scrap rep sat me down and showed me the math, you get the exact same money for stripped wire as you do sheathed wire, they estimate pretty accurately the weight of the plastic and reduce your value by that. 6 of one or half a dozen of the other, with a whole lot less work. The key is how thick and how bright the copper is, if it is a really thin gauge or tarnished it is worth less, anything akin to spaghetti or thicker is good. With pipe, the brighter it is the higher value it has. As some have said, you can cut off the joints for more value because they have solder or lead which is bad. The recyclers rate your copper as Bare Bright, #1 Bright, #1, #2 or just a pile of crap. The only reason to cut it into shorter lengths is for ease of transport for both you and them. You will notice as you hang out in the Star Wars bar scene that is a scrap yard, most of the folks that spend a lot of time on scrap spend very little time processing it down unless there is a compelling reason to do so like breaking down a cooling unit, etc.