Learn / Copper Wire and Cable Scrap
Not all copper scrap is priced the same, and the gap between bare wire and insulated cable is bigger than most people expect.
Clean, uncoated, unalloyed wire with no insulation at all. The highest-value copper grade, because there's nothing left for a buyer to strip or process.
Clean copper tubing, bus bar, and wire, generally 1/16 inch thick or more, without insulation or heavy oxidation.
Copper with some solder, paint, or light oxidation, still valuable, just not pure enough to grade as #1.
Mixed cable with the plastic or rubber insulation still attached, typically recovering only 60 to 70% copper by weight once processed.
A buyer pricing insulated cable isn't paying for its total weight, they're paying for the copper they can actually recover once it's stripped, typically 60 to 70% of the total. The rest is plastic or rubber the buyer has to remove and dispose of. Bare bright wire skips that step entirely, which is exactly why it commands a real premium over the same copper still wrapped in insulation.
A mixed load of bare wire, #1, #2, and insulated cable together typically prices at whichever grade is lowest. Even a rough sort into separate piles before you list tends to add up to more than the same material sold as one combined lot. See our full grading guide for the same principle applied across every material category.
Because the buyer is paying for what they can actually recover, and insulation adds weight without adding copper. A cable that's genuinely 60 to 70% copper by weight is priced against that recovery rate, not against the gross weight you're handing over, and someone still has to do the work of stripping it before the copper is usable.
Often yes, if you have the time and it's safe and legal to do where you are. Bare bright wire commands a real premium over insulated cable of the same underlying copper content, so the labour can pay for itself, particularly on larger volumes.
Purity and thickness. #1 is clean, unalloyed copper at a minimum gauge with no coatings; #2 covers copper with some solder, paint, or light oxidation on it. Both are genuinely valuable, #2 simply reflects the extra processing a buyer has to do to get it to #1 purity.
It can, since different insulation materials affect how easily it strips and what proportion of the total weight is actually copper. A specific quote is the only reliable way to know for a given cable type, general guides can only describe the pattern, not your exact material.
No. A mixed lot typically prices at the lowest grade present, so keeping bare bright, #1, #2, and insulated cable separated, even roughly, tends to get a meaningfully better total than combining them into one load.
Live reference pricing across every grade, updated daily.
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