Municipal Scrap

I was at an auction with one of our typical auction company. I struck up a conversation with one of the guys who sometimes helps as a ringman. He asked me if I was still scrapping, yada yada yada. We shot the s**t for a while then we mentioned something about scrap at his shop. Told me he worked for a town in the water department. He said they had a scrap pile that was getting fairly large. He said they had some aluminum signs, some stainless and then he sunk in, "I estimate about 2000 pounds of scrap brass water meters". I nearly crapped my pants right there. He got my number and said that we could connect and I could get them a price to purchase the pile.

My question comes in how do you even quote this. If there is 2000 pounds of brass that is quite a chunk of change right there. I'm really not sure if they are going to be expecting top dollar or just some drinking money. I'm wondering if anyone else has dealt with a deal like this?

It really doesn't matter what they are expecting to get. All you can do is give them a price. Then it's up to them to accept or reject it.

I would think you should be capable of weighing it up on the spot. It's tough to say whether the guy's weight estimate is an educated one or just something he pulled out of the top of his head. Another benefit of weighing them in front of them is that they will more likely to be satisfied with your offer.

1. You need to make sure he is authorized to sell it.
2. Check with your yard. Water meters usually have a seperate catagory other than clean brass. They may not have it listed, but probably won't want to pay full brass price.

I worked for a local municipality for over 30 years. Everything the city (The citizen's) own that becomes expendable or surplus has to go out for bid or be sold at public auction scrap metal included. It was very tempting all those years to try and get permission to scrap some of the thousands of pounds of brass and copper that accumulated. Our department even tried to get the go ahead to sell some of the scrap and put it in a fund for employee retirements but was it was denied. The city I worked for also owned the electric utility in the town center so they had lots of scrap copper cable in the junk pile. Before I would touch one piece of scrap you mentioned get permission from the city clerk, department head or city manager or all of them in writing. You can be charged with theft if the one giving you the go ahead lacks the authority to give it.

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Originally Posted by JnJunk

I was at an auction with one of our typical auction company. I struck up a conversation with one of the guys who sometimes helps as a ringman. He asked me if I was still scrapping, yada yada yada. We shot the s**t for a while then we mentioned something about scrap at his shop. Told me he worked for a town in the water department. He said they had a scrap pile that was getting fairly large. He said they had some aluminum signs, some stainless and then he sunk in, "I estimate about 2000 pounds of scrap brass water meters". I nearly crapped my pants right there. He got my number and said that we could connect and I could get them a price to purchase the pile.

My question comes in how do you even quote this. If there is 2000 pounds of brass that is quite a chunk of change right there. I'm really not sure if they are going to be expecting top dollar or just some drinking money. I'm wondering if anyone else has dealt with a deal like this?

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I've bid on several of the brass water meter lots. They always seem to go top dollar.

I've also bid on several of water meter lots and as Pnutfarmer said they always bring top dollar. I don't know who buys them but it cant be to make money, as is the best you can get brass breakage, .25cent a lb. If you break them down you'll have a lb. or 2 of #2hms .06cent a lb. about a half lb. of low grade cuc .10cent a lb. then you have a few lbs. of semi-red brass $1.18 a lb. a little bit of plastic you have to trash. $2.50 to $4.00 at best.

I am very conservative. First as mentioned before, make sure you have permission. Second I use the land lease agreement (1/3-2/3). Being honest and telling them any bid would benefit the buyer because they are not going to loose money on the deal and with my offer they get 1/3 without any effort. I have had several communities suspend an auction on scrap because they felt my offer was fair, they know what they were getting, and the city council knew who they were dealing with. IN smaller communities, the landfill is an opportunity. They have to pay to have the scrap buried, but if you give them 1/3 of it's value and turn around and make the same offer on their non-ferrous utilities scrap they remember and shoot business your way. I am not sure about other states, but where I live it is required the community gets fair market value, not a public auction. Therefore the residents of these communities feel they were treated fair, with sincerity, and feels a community member will return their confidence in them. This is more advice for rural scrappers, not those in the big city although I believe the same strategy would work with time. Some large landfills will not allow you to remove items, but I have found that a meeting with the city council explaining the money they are loosing will allow an honest scrapper a deal. Just an idea from an independent part of the country.