Most sellers lose money not because they were paid unfairly, but because their load was graded down for something they could have separated in twenty minutes. Copper is where this bites hardest, because the spread between the top and bottom grade is wide enough to notice.
Barley, and why it pays the most
Bright copper wire, known in the trade as Barley, is bare, unalloyed, uncoated and no thinner than 16 SWG. No insulation, no solder, no paint, no tarnish beyond light surface oxidation. It commands the highest price because a refiner can take it almost as it arrives.
Berry: clean, but not bright
Copper No. 1, or Berry, covers clean tube, busbar and clippings. Heavier and often darker than Barley, still free of coatings and attachments. Fittings still soldered onto a length of tube will drop the whole piece a grade, so cut them off.
Birch and Cliff: the catch-all
Copper No. 2 takes soldered, painted or tinned material. Anything that needs work before it can be melted lands here. A great deal of metal ends up in this grade purely because nobody spent an afternoon sorting it.
What to do before you call
- Separate bright wire from everything else first. It is the biggest single win.
- Cut brass and steel fittings off copper tube.
- Keep insulated cable in its own pile. We granulate it and pay on recovered metal.
- Photograph each pile separately. It speeds up the quote considerably.
If you are unsure, do not guess and do not mix. Bring it as it is, and we will grade it in front of you on the weighbridge.
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