I have found that the ballasts are a real easy way to get copper.
Theres 2 sorts, old sort - box fill of tar & the modern sort - white painted lamination.
Box full of tar.
Use a fire & melt the tar out, small fires Ok or a fireplace, theres minimal smoke.
Grab one end with pliers & tap the ballast out while its still hot.
You will find that the iron core is made of 2 long leg 'C' shapes with a paper & tar covered coil of Copper wire.
Grab one or both ends of the 'C' & pull on it & the copper coil will fall off.
It will be covered with a thin layer of tar & some fine ricepaper, that flakes off & leaves you with a nice compactish coil of fine copper wire & 2 solid Iron laminations & the encasing box. Oh, & tar...
Real nice easy work, a bit dirty but the coppers good value. Save them up & do 30 or so at a time.
Since they get thrown away anyway, they are easyish to get.
If you are lucky, a shop fitout (where I got mine) can return from 20 to 200 (mine 30)
The Tar, can be used to cover a hole in roofing or something else, I dunno.
Laminations, painted white.
Peel off the backing plate, (hard - use a vise)
The rest falls apart, theres hundreds of 'C' sections & 1/2 that of small squares that you have to punch out of the copper coil.
Theres 100 gms of copper wire in that sort of ballast = NZ$.65cents each or US$0.50cents each.
I just found out that the pre 1975 flouros have PCB filled capacitors inside them.
Don't break them open & be careful of the liquid or the possibility of there being liquid in that part of the flouro.
Bookmarks