Those prices mirror what I was paid a while back in our area. I haven't been to the scrap yard in over a month...I bet prices have dropped here too.

can you explain the difference in circuit boards?

I can check and post our prices but seems the High dollar is mid summer, then major
fluctuations in between.

They don't buy circuit board here.

#1 Circuit boards are the ones from computers, ie the RAM, mother board without the CPU and aluminum heat sinks. These boards contain valuable metals such as gold, platinum, etc..

#2 Circuit boards are from everything else and aren't scrapped for valuable metals, but for chips, resistors etc.

That's the best way I can explain it and it is how it was explained to me.

Also the CPU's themselves are a different price.. I know at one point in time I was getting $20/lbs for them, but it takes about 16 to make a pound. I don't know what the price is now because I haven't taken any in for a while now.

Hope that helps.

seems we have higher price on general scrap but no one paying for circuit board.

They are in everything but everything but darn near treated as hazard.

Yup, there are circuit boards in everything these days.. I know it doesn't take long for me to get a 55 gallon drum full. Put then again they are only .10 cents a pound, so I'm not getting rich off of them. They only reason I keep them is because it's better to get something for them instead of putting them in the trash (no allowed anymore).

But this too will dry up as the corrupt State of PA has made it illegal for many of us to scrap anything with a circuit board. They have now made a lot of things / items fall under the category of "electronics" and it's illegal for the general public to scrap "electronics" we have to take it to the "State" approved sites for disposal..
I can only assume that the big recycling companies got tired of having to by the boards from us "peons", so now they get it directly from the "State"

Yikes!

Scrap prices have fallen again, at least at our local yard.

Cans and breakage are .45

I didn't get prices on anything else.

Not what I wanted to hear!

I haven't hauled any in lately and don't know when I will. I'm guessing at least not until Feb. unless I get some big load from one of the places I get scrap from.

Well, don't forget that it is just one yard. They are a great yard, but notoriously low on cans.

They are telling you they do not want them.

First week of December, 2014:

$120/ton shredder steel

$160/ton electric motors

Mansfield, OH

Can't disassemble those electric motors for the copper ?

The yards are selling those motors for 800-1000+ dollars per ton to the Chinese.

Both these prices are low..

120/ton = 6 cents a pound or $6/per hundred
160/ton = 8 cents a pound or $8/per hundred.

Last time I checked I they were paying .15 per pound for electric motors.
But I never take electric motors in whole, I strip the #2 copper from them.
Also the last load of light tin/steel that I hauled was .08 per pound, and .09 cents for Cast Iron and Steel (think disc brake rotors).

Same here, I always tear them down.

I cut my scrappers teeth pulling copper out of motors from the dead coal mine equipment around here. Some of 'em about the size of 55 gallon drums.
I even tipi-stacked old hedge posts and piled the rotors in the middle and melted the aluminum out into heavy puddles.
Made payments on my first backhoe with those motors, buying them from one scrap yard for six cents a pound and selling the copper for a buck.
Ah for the memories........

:)

I remember selling #1 copper for 90 cents a pound, and thinking I was getting rich. That was a long time ago, and could not imagine the prices we've had in the recent past.

Yes, and this yard is fairly vocal about it.

They will readily admit that they buy cans as a community service, and to bring in the small customer.

What they really want is copper and brass. There are some heavy hitters in our area that bring in large amounts. I have seen some pretty powerful checks and cash given to scrappers. Those are the scrappers that are the backbone of that business. These are the type of scrappers who know how the scrap business works, and everything is business to them.

The problem with the "can people" is that so many of them are nothing but trouble, and a real hassle to deal with.

I've seen hundreds of scrappers haul in BIG loads, and walk out with $5,000 in cash, and never cause a problem.

I've seen hundreds of "can people" walk in with 2 1/2 pounds of cans, and act like they own the place. So many of them have counted their chickens before they hatch, and think they should be getting $40 for their paltry 2 pounds of cans and a piece of 6 inch insulated wire.

I've seen a few of them act pretty obnoxiously when their tab comes to $1.55, including some crazy behavior and wild threats.

Many of the can sellers, in a nutshell, can be more hassle than they are worth, at least at that scrap yard, and I don't blame them a bit.

Thankfully I don't take cans in unless I have 5 barrels full (crushed cans) or approx 200 lbs. Plus I get a better price if I have over 200 lbs..
It seems that some get upset when asked to dump their cans into a wire cage/bin.. The scrap yard does this to stop paying for water/ice etc.. I have no problem with this and understand it completely. Yet it seems that some of these clowns get really upset when asked to do this and don't let a single can hit the ground and not get counted. Because that will set some of these fools off..

I heard a saying many moons ago:

The higher the profit margin, the happier the customer.

It took a while for that old adage to sink into my thick skull, but in many ways, it is true.

I've witnessed some of the ugliest actions by human beings at the scrap yard when their 3 pounds of cans and 12 pounds of dirty steel didn't pay them the $20 they thought that they deserved.

I don't work there...but man, I have seen some of those people act pretty ugly!!!! No wonder the owner is WELL armed!

FWIW, I watched a short clip that Jim Cramer did on CNBC about falling commodity prices.

He thinks copper is going to get hammered, mostly due to softer demand, mainly in China.

"We could see copper at $2" he said.

If he is correct in his prediction, and $2 copper comes to pass, what prices will we get at the yards for our scrap?

Here is a question for you all:

Let's guess that copper falls sharply to $2 on the commodity markets, and let's say that the yards are paying $1.20 to $1.30 for scrap #1 copper.

Would you keep selling at those prices? Would you stockpile, and hope that the market rebounds?

Very good questions, Clovis.

I just talked to my best metals contact today.

Sell any steel you want to move, NOW...... he said.

He's hoping to see a small rally in copper, at which point he plans to make a big sale.

He doesn't see copper or steel improving in the foreseeable future, i.e., this year.

I've known the man since high school, and scrap metal was about the last place he foresaw a career, but he was in the right place at the right time in grain marketing, and got in with people who were deep/high end in grain.....and scrap markets.
He's managing an extremely successful and progressive scrap yard here, now, and has seen many things come and go.

I'm selling my steel. I have one semi trailer load at the moment.
I'm holding my red metals, but that may change overnight....

Very interesting, Forerunner.

As a side note, I think that it is important to remember that what Jim Cramer said is just an opinion.

I find it interesting that your guy is seeing the markets move and is making plans on steel and reds.

BTW, and FWIW, I don't see copper staying down for the long term.

From my understanding, all of the easy-to-get copper ore has already been mined. The miners are having to go farther and dig deeper to get the good stuff, and it is costing them a fortune to extract from the ground and process.

If the copper market collapses, or at least has a strong pull back, I wonder what that will do to the plans for a giant copper mine in Mongolia. Wasn't that supposed to be the largest open pit mine in the world?

I think the big question will be in defining the "long term" market for copper. Are we talking 2 years, or 20?

If you are of the camp that sees gold and silver eventually spiking off the charts due to the the ultimate demise of the paper dollar, then it would follow that copper will also re-monetize along with.

If the market is 100% economy based, demand may fall flat and stay there.

It's a real duck shoot trying to guess the trend and the timing.

Traditionally, a supply of monetary grade metal was a good thing.
Fiat currency and manipulated economy screw up everything, at this point.....especially predictability.

If you can hold on to your red metals for 20 years......I dare say you'll come back into better sell or barter markets.

I would keep selling. I would also be willing to be I would be getting more copper if it drops that low.
My advantage is that I don't do this for a living and it doesn't matter what the prices are. When I have a full barrel, I haul it in and enjoy the extra cash.

I know I just spent 2 days in Appomattox, VA (a 6 hour run from home). It cost me roughly $300 for the gas, room, food. Not a penny came out of my paycheck/house budget. It all came out of my scrap money and I still have some left.. :D


Just a side note: When I started doing scrap, prices were about as follows:
tin/light steel - .01/lbs or a single dollar per hundred pounds
#1 copper was something like .80/lbs
So unless there is a complete crash I doubt that the prices will ever get that low.
But then again if they do drop that low, that means that those who make a living off of scrapping will have to find other work.
Which then means people like myself will get more because we will be the only ones around to haul it again/like before.

An old salvage man once told me......the only way to "succeed" in any venture is to stick it out, through the thick and the thin.

I saw many "small" scrap operators (yards much bigger than my own spread, but not the Big Boys) fall out and disappear forever during the price crunch in the late 90s.

I still have my semi trailer, my torches, my tools and my "route".

Sure was fun selling steel at 350 and copper at 4.50 when the pendulum came back.

Beowoulf.....we must have started scrapping about the same time.
Mid to late 80s ?

Agree with your point on diversification. :)

Here on the homestead I keep a scrap pile down in the back. I pick up things as I see them, but have not been to big on scraping, maybe because of time. I have a guy about 8 miles from me that buys a lot of scrap and he is doing great busy all the time. Nice post.

I agree.

When I started selling scrap, even though I've only done it part time, here and there, I think copper was $1.25. Prices would later dip to .90 cents for #1.

Steel was a .01 a pound, but no one in our area would buy it. It was a 30 mile haul, one way, to a scrap yard that bought steel.

The funny thing, at that time, is that scrap was everywhere. I couldn't go to an auction without tripping over #1 or insulated. Aluminum was about as common as sand on a beach.

My big game was to buy all the extension cords, scrap copper, and aluminum that I could find at an estate. While everyone else was walking around this stuff because it was beneath them, I was scoring this stuff, and adding $30 to $50 a week in income for super easy work.

Because it was so easy to find, I made a bunch of money selling scrap. As the prices have skyrocketed, finding a single 1/2 copper fitting at an estate sale is like finding a needle in a haystack! I made more money when prices were at a $1.00 a pound for #1.

Yup 1984, when I returned home from the military.
I didn't have work so I started cleaning peoples basements and garages and hauling away the trash. I bought an old 1973 chevy truck (for $400), a total rust bucket. I repaired the cab and front fenders and removed the bed. I put lifts/blocks at the axle/springs so I could make a full size flatbed. I used free skids from Harley davidson for the side rails, tar covered 4x4's from the Boro that culvert came shipped on and 2 x 10's for the bed.
Since there was a gap now between the step bumper and the bed and I needed tail lights etc. I went to the junk yard and bought a pair of 1970 dodge challenger taillight assembly (complete) and mounted them in the gap. (still have them to this day)
Anyway when I wasn't looking for a "real" job I was hauling trash I cleaned out for $25, for stone and dirt or ash - $20 and any and all metals/scrap where mine to do with as I saw fit. I even got a car once that they wanted out of the garage..

Still do the same thing to this day, just not as much "cleaning out". People know me and bring it to me or make arrangements to pick it up..
I no longer have the heavy trucks to haul the bigger stuff, but I still manage to make a few extra dollars.

I think maybe I read somewhere last year that copper was part of those metal warehousing schemes one of the big financial institutions was/is involved in on the London's Metals Market by manipulating the price by manipulating the supply. Maybe it was another metal, but I was thinking it was copper.

Copper being #3 in the monetary metals utilized here in America, originally, I have no doubt that copper has been severely manipulated right along with gold and silver.

It was copper or aluminum, I forget which. It was part of a Rolling Stone Article awhile back about financial institutions doing shady stuff once their hands were untied by the Financial Services Modernization Act.

Scrap metal has really fallen in this area. There was a big boom and then places started closing up. The ones that remain are the ones who paid the least during the boom. Part of it is that you now have to have a permit because they cracked down on the business because there was so much metal theft going on in our area. Some of the businesses knew it and turned a blind eye to people showing up with guardrails and bronze plaques off headstones and such, hoping they could get the stuff processed before the police showed up.

I deal regularly with one of the most PC scrap yards in the country.

:rolleyes:

Thankfully, I know the manager very well, and together we can make things happen. :)

Hi, I'm new here-- please let me know if this question's in the wrong place.

My fiancee has an early 2000s Ford Focus that currently isn't running. He's told me that it's a junk car and not worth putting any more money into (although he's already replaced several components). He wants to try to trade it in to get a deal on a new car. I would rather we pay cash for a used car for him.

I guess my question is, if we were to try to part the thing out and sell the rest for scrap, how much could we expect to get? It doesn't have any valuable aftermarket stuff, so this would be just parts currently on the car/scrap.

Thanks in advance!

I think that the others here can direct you better than I can.

With that said, you should look up completed listings on ebay for the parts you have. This will show you how much a tail light lens for your car is worth, etc.

15-20 years ago my helper and I spent hours cleaning the glass out of old storm doors, driving them to a scrap yard and being paid $70ish for 750 pounds. For the next 10-15 years I gave them away or took them to the dump and paid a dump fee so they could profit off of them. Head it in my head that selling them would be at a loss. NOW.... and for the past few years I make about $100 a week selling them for scrap.

If my plans to buy a farm come together (should know this week) then I'll be able to have the space to hold onto them and sell when the prices are high instead of being forced to sell once a week since I don't have any place to store them. If it all comes together I'll have to read all 26 pages of this thread to get the most out of my little side income.

IT will depend on how you approach it.
If you are mechanically inclined and know how to remove the parts without destroying them you may be able to sell them. It will take time. You won't make the money off of it quickly in most cases. With the prices down at the moment you may not get a lot for the entire car.

As others have said check fleabay and see what parts are listed and if you can check to see which ones actually sold (you have to have an account for this). You may also be able to see if any items are being requested.

You may also want to see if there is a local shop that rebuilds parts. They may give you a decent price for your used items.

The alternator, water pump, catalytic converter etc can all be worth money both used and as scrap. These are just parts. While the entire vehicle might only bring $350 as scrap..

Just another thought, check craiglist to see if others are selling parts or are looking for parts. You may be able to sell a few parts and still be able to scrap the rest.

Again it will take time and isn't a fast way of getting rid of the vehicle unless you can tear it down and store the parts till sold.

I am hoping you guys can help me a little.

My in-laws have a j-u-n-k 1999 Kia Sophia with 177,000 miles. Actually, it doesn't run bad...if you can get it started and keep it idling, LOL.

What I need to figure out is a base line for value.

The car weighs about 2500 pounds.

What would this rusted out junker scrap for as steel??????

There would be a decent battery and a cat converter. About a 1/2 tank of gas. (LOL)

Thoughts????

In Ohio you would be looking at around $175 for just scrap steel @ 0.07 cents per lb. If you pull the motor those go for 0.12 cents per lb. and if you pull the trans those go for around 0.20 cents per lb. plus around $7 for the battery and $20 for cat converter if its not hollowed out, plus the aluminum radiator around 0.40 cents per lb. The more work you put in the more you profit. Not sure about your area.

Someone mentioned selling computer boards for $0.75/lb. You are getting hosed!!! The Ram sticks alone are worth $10/lb+ Finger boards are ~$3/lb Mother boards vary $1.40-$3 something. You have to ship it, but is wayyyyy worth it compared to $0.75/lb, at least on hard drive boards, cd drive boards, ram and finger boards. Selling the motherboards local at $0.75/lb you come out ahead by saving shipping.

Oh and CPUs, different types have different grades, ranging between $5/lb-$100/lb