All-
Interesting ideas. I like the wind chime idea- those types of metals do have a really nice "ring" to them (I saved the brass bells out of a couple old phones I took apart recently, just because)... Years and years ago I made earrings out of inexpensive but visually interesting foreign coins- easy and fun.
I like going to yard sales (if they're convenient)- I don't much like having them, though. While I *do* have a lot of "junk" in the house, virtually all of it is stuff I actually want (and is of limited interest to most other folks). I mean, who has room for a garage full of stuff they *don't* really want or need? As soon as we fill up a cardboard box of that kind of stuff it gets taken to Goodwill as a tax deduction- heaven forbid we accumulate enough useless stuff to have a garage sale! In fact, Saturday was "clean out the carport day"- I sold a few scavenged items on Craigslist ($20 for a collapsible dog pen I found next to a dumpster- whoop!), dropped off some cheap household items at Goodwill and took the rest to the scrapyard.
So I did take a couple of baggies of coins to the scrap yard- one "bronze" and one "copper-nickel"- and wound up getting $1.50/lb for both of them (the yard's going rate for "red brass", though that's not exactly how they describe it). The guy there is friendly enough and so far as I can tell offers square deals, but he isn't exactly the most talkative/informative guy (I don't think he's used to dealing with scrap-geeks). At first he didn't really know what to think and offered $1/lb, though changed his mind and gave me the better deal (maybe because he was just curious to poke through the baggies). I didn't bring any "aluminum bronze" or "real" brass coins, but I imagine he'd offer me the same deal for that stuff, too- I dunno. He might think about it a little more and ask a few more questions if I were to drive up with a 55 gal drum of the stuff.
While I was there, another scrapper looked at my coins and suggested I should sell them elsewhere to get more money. It's kind of interesting how people perceive value differently. I, a 20+ year coin collector and reasonably knowledgeable about metal commodity prices, was happy to get $1.50 a pound. No questions, no shipping, no extra trip to the post office, no emails to write or phone calls to make, and not a whole lot less than I would get from selling better bulk samples on eBay. He just saw coins (!) and was *convinced* I was getting ripped off (not that he offered to buy them!).
I guess value is in the eye of the beholder, though nothing is worth anything if no-one wants it. The trick is to combine knowledge (of an item/market/commodity) and opportunity (finding or producing an item and then finding the right time/place to sell it)....
cheers,
tbg
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