Copper Cable
Not everyone should be stripping insulation off wire, and that's fine. Selling copper cable intact, at a price that reflects what it actually recovers, is a completely legitimate option, not a consolation prize for not having the time or tools to strip it yourself. Here's what genuinely affects what your cable is worth, and how to sell it properly either way.
Insulated copper cable is usually described as recovering 60 to 70% copper by weight, but that's an average, not a fixed figure. The real recovery rate depends heavily on the type of cable, how much copper it actually contains relative to insulation, shielding, and other material. One quick check before you assume it's copper at all: overhead power conductor is very often aluminium, not copper, weigh a sample if you're unsure, aluminium is dramatically lighter.
Thick, single or few-core conductors. Generally the best recovery rate of any insulated cable type, since there's proportionally more copper to insulation.
Multiple thin conductors bundled together, often with connectors attached. Moderate recovery, more labour to process than a simple mains cable.
Many fine strands, sometimes with a foil shield. Lower recovery rate than mains cable, more insulation and shielding relative to the copper inside.
A single fine core wrapped in a copper braid shield and a lot of dielectric material. Usually the lowest recovery rate of the common cable types.
A buyer who doesn't know what type of cable they're looking at has to price toward the cautious end of that range, which usually means a lower offer than a correctly-identified cable would get. Where possible, buyers assess unfamiliar cable by weighing a sample and stripping it to check the actual recovery rate before quoting the rest of the lot, which is exactly why naming the cable type and, ideally, its general source, mains wiring, an old switchboard, network cabling pulled from an office fit-out, gives a buyer enough to price it properly on the first look instead of defaulting to a conservative guess.
ScrapTrade's live-priced Insulated Copper Cable category covers mixed cable with the insulation still attached, benchmarked to that typical 60 to 70% copper recovery. Describe the specific cable type in your listing where you can, mains, automotive, telecom, or coax, since it genuinely affects what a buyer expects to recover and therefore what a confident offer looks like.
Check today's copper cable priceStripped, bare bare bright wire genuinely pays more than the same copper still insulated, that gap is real. But stripping only makes sense past a certain volume, or if you already have the tools and time, and most sellers with a moderate amount of cable are better off selling it intact. Bulk buyers specifically process insulated cable at scale, often with equipment and recovery efficiency an individual couldn't match manually anyway, so selling as-is isn't leaving obvious value on the table the way it might for a small, high-value item.
If you do have real volume and the time to strip it, it's worth doing the maths on the price gap first rather than assuming it's automatically worthwhile, the labour cost is real even when it's your own time.
Copper cable follows infrastructure and industrial activity closely, and two markets stand out for genuine, documented reasons. Melbourne sits on the Port of Melbourne, the country's busiest container port, which matters for sellers moving cable in genuine bulk rather than a single reel, on top of Victoria's large manufacturing base. Newcastle carries a real heavy-industry and manufacturing base built up around its steelmaking history, and that kind of industrial activity generates and consumes exactly this kind of electrical and communication cable at real volume.
Neither city is a requirement. Electricians, telecom contractors, and anyone replacing old wiring generate copper cable anywhere in Australia, and ScrapTrade connects buyers and sellers nationally regardless of where a listing is posted from.
The copper inside insulated cable is chemically identical to bare bright once it's recovered, insulation doesn't degrade the metal itself, it just adds a processing step and reduces the recoverable share per kilogram of gross weight. That's why cable is priced against expected recovery rather than treated as a lesser material, the copper you can't see is still there, and buyers who process cable at scale are set up to recover it efficiently.
Cable a buyer isn't familiar with is exactly the kind of material that gets priced against a worst-case recovery assumption rather than what it actually contains. On ScrapTrade, you check a live reference price first, describe the cable type clearly, then list at a fixed price, run it as a live auction so verified buyers assess and compete for it, or negotiate directly, negotiation is on by default on every listing. Every listing is GPS-video verified before it goes live, and payment sits in escrow from the moment a deal is confirmed until pickup or delivery is done, so neither side is exposed first. The full case for why that beats a single yard quote is on Why Choose ScrapTrade and Trust & Safety.
Sorting helps, since recovery rate varies meaningfully by cable type, mains cable recovers more copper per kilogram than coax or fine telecom cable does. A mixed lot generally prices at a blended rate reflecting the average, so separating even roughly tends to get more total value than one combined pile.
It depends entirely on volume and whether you have the tools or time. Selling it as-is is a completely legitimate choice, bulk buyers process cable at scale with equipment most individual sellers don't have, often more efficiently than manual stripping would achieve anyway. See our guide to bare bright copper for the stripping side of that decision.
It means a buyer expects to recover roughly that share of the cable's total weight as usable copper once it's processed, and prices the cable against that expected yield, not its gross weight. A cable type with lower recovery, like coax, gets priced lower per kilogram of gross weight than mains cable does, for the same reason.
It can, if the insulation is cracked, melted, or contaminated, it may signal damage to the copper underneath too, or simply make it harder for a buyer to assess. Clean, intact cable, even fully insulated, is easier to price confidently than cable that looks like it's been through a fire or heavy weathering.
Describe the cable type clearly in your listing, mains, automotive, telecom, or coax, rather than just "copper cable." Check a live reference price first, then run it as a live auction so multiple verified buyers assess it on its actual merits instead of assuming the worst-case recovery rate.
Not fatally, you can still list it, just describe what you can, its approximate diameter, where it came from, and whether it has one thick core or many thin strands. That's usually enough for a buyer to make a reasonable assessment even without a formal cable-type name attached to it.
Check a live price, then sell at a fixed price, run an auction, or negotiate directly.
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