Key points
- Of the metals most people bring in, copper pays the most per pound, and bare bright wire is the top grade.
- Copper content and cleanliness set the order, from bare bright down to thin wire.
- Prices move every trading day with COMEX, but the order stays about the same.
In this guide
Of the metals most people bring to a scrap yard, copper pays the most per pound. Bare bright copper wire is the top grade.
Below that, the order runs by how much copper is in the metal and how clean it is. Prices change every trading day, but the order stays about the same. Here is the ranking, and how to sort for it.
Copper is most of what people sold at our Harrisburg yard from June 25 to Sept 24, 2026. Copper in some form was 71% of the pounds we bought. It was 94% of the dollars we paid out.
Why copper content and cleanliness set the order
A yard pays for the copper in your scrap. So the more of each pound that is copper, the more that pound is worth.
Clean metal ranks higher too. Solder, paint, plastic and steel add weight, but they aren't copper.
The trade sorts scrap with shared grade rules from ReMA, the Recycled Materials Association. Each grade has a code name, like Barley or Birch. The names below come from the July 2026 ReMA ISRI Specifications.
The ranking, from most per pound to least
1. Bare bright copper wire (Barley)
ReMA calls Barley "No. 1 bare, uncoated, unalloyed copper wire," better known as bare bright. It has no coating, tin, paint or plastic. It's the cleanest copper most people ever bring in.
On our materials list, it's #1 Bare Bright Wire.
2. Other #1 copper: wire and clean tubing (Berry, Candy)
Berry is clean #1 copper wire and cable. It can't be tinned, coated or brittle from burning.
Candy is clean, uncoated copper in solid form, like tubing, bus bars and clippings. Clean pipe goes on our #1 Copper Tubing / Flashing line. Our list puts bus bar on the #2 line, so ask at the counter where clean bus bar goes.
3. #2 copper (Birch, Cliff)
Birch is #2 wire, and Cliff is #2 pipe and solids. ReMA sets both at about 96% copper, and never under 94%.
This is copper with some solder, paint or tin on it. It goes on our #2 Copper Tubing / Bus Bar line. Our guide to #1 vs #2 copper shows how to tell the two apart.
4. Light copper and roofing (Dream)
Dream is light copper. ReMA lists sheet copper, gutters, downspouts, kettles and boilers. It sets them at about 92% copper, and never under 88%.
That's less copper than #2, so it ranks below it. We have a Roofing Copper line, and flashing is named on the #1 tubing line. Ask at the counter which one your pieces fit.
5. Brass, by copper content
Brass is copper mixed with zinc and sometimes other metals. The more copper a brass holds, the more it's worth per pound.
Red brass (Ebony) is about 85% copper. Concast lists its red brass at 84% to 86% copper, used in valves, pipe fittings and water meter parts.
Shell casings are 70/30 brass. SAAMI defines cartridge brass as 70% copper and 30% zinc. ReMA gives fired 70/30 shell cases their own grades, and we buy Brass Shells.
Yellow brass (Honey) runs about 60% to 68% copper, based on the alloys in Dixon Valve's guide to brass types. ReMA says yellow brass must be free of bullet casings, so keep shells out of it.
Faucets (Grape) are their own mixed grade. ReMA describes it as red and yellow brass together, chrome or nickel plating included. Keep faucets in their own pile.
Other brass lines on our list include Brass (Plumbing, Pipe), Brass Water Meter and Dirty Brass Faucets.
6. Insulated copper wire (Druid, Droid)
Yes, all copper wire is worth money, insulated wire included. Druid is insulated #1 copper wire, and Droid is insulated #2. ReMA says it's sold "on sample or recovery basis." Recovery means how much copper is left once the plastic comes off.
Because it's paid by recovery, insulated wire has no fixed spot in this order. It covers a wide range:
Heavy cable, like 500-750 MCM (very thick cable) and thick THHN building wire, has a lot of copper and thin plastic. It's the top of the insulated range.
Romex falls in the middle. Its outer jacket covers several insulated wires, so less of each pound is copper.
Thin wire, like Cat 5/6 data cable, has thin copper and a lot of plastic. It's at the bottom.
Insulated wire was the biggest single grade by weight at our Harrisburg yard from June 25 to Sept 24, 2026. We buy it on lines like 500-750 MCM, THHN Cable, Romex Wire and Insulated Copper Wire (Cat 5/6). Keep each kind in its own pile.
Chips and boards: a different scale
Circuit boards and chips don't fit the copper ranking. ReMA says boards are "typically sold on an assay basis," sorted by how much gold they hold. An assay is a test that measures the metal inside.
A board holds only a little gold, but gold is priced by the ounce, not the pound. The U.S. EPA says recycling a million cell phones can recover 75 pounds of gold, along with 35,000 pounds of copper.
So a pound of boards or chips can be worth much more or much less than a pound of copper. It depends on what's on them. We buy CPU Processor Chips, Memory Chips and Clean Green Motherboards, among others.
What "right now" means for scrap prices
Copper prices move every trading day with COMEX, the U.S. copper market whose price the USGS reports. Yards watch COMEX and pay within a range of it.
COMEX copper is quoted by the pound, and it swings from year to year. The USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 gives these COMEX yearly averages:
$3.86 a pound in 2023
$4.22 a pound in 2024
About $4.80 a pound in 2025, a projected record
Those are COMEX averages, not yard prices. A yard pays below COMEX, and the gap grows as the grade drops.
Made-up example: Say COMEX copper is $5.00 a pound today. A yard might pay $4.50 for bare bright, closest to COMEX. It might pay $4.00 for #2 copper. Heavy insulated cable might bring $2.75, and thin wire $1.25, because part of each pound is plastic. These numbers are made up and are not our prices.
If COMEX moves, every grade in that example moves with it. The order stays about the same.
What mixing grades can cost you
When grades get mixed, a yard may have to grade the whole bucket at the lower grade.
Made-up example: Use the same prices: $4.50 a pound for bare bright and $4.00 for #2. You toss 30 pounds of bare bright into a bucket of #2. Sorted, those 30 pounds would bring $135. Mixed in as #2, they bring $120. You'd lose $15. These numbers are made up and are not our prices.
The math works at any price. The market sets the price, but your sorting sets the grade.
What we buy, and what we don't
We buy non-ferrous scrap. That means copper, brass, insulated wire, coils, radiators, car batteries, lead and electronics. You can see all 44 grades on our What We Purchase page.
We don't buy steel, iron or aluminum cans.
Before you bring it in
Put bare bright wire in its own bucket.
Keep clean pipe apart from pipe with solder or paint.
Cut brass fittings and valves off your copper pipe.
Keep gutters, sheet and roofing copper apart from pipe.
Sort insulated wire by kind: heavy cable, Romex and thin wire.
Sort brass by kind: shells, faucets and other brass.
Pull steel screws, clamps and brackets off your metal.
Box up boards and chips on their own.
Visit our Harrisburg yard at 916 S 18th St, Harrisburg, PA 17104, or call (717) 562-7022. It's open Monday to Friday 9 AM to 6 PM and Saturday 9 AM to 3 PM. In Texas, visit our Corpus Christi yard at 3717 Saturn Rd, Corpus Christi, TX 78413. Call (361) 462-4387 first for hours.
Questions
Where can I get the most money for my scrap metal?
Start with sorting, because clean, sorted grades pay more at any yard. Then call a few yards on the same day and ask what each grade pays. Prices move daily, so a quote from last week won't tell you much.
What is the highest paying scrap metal price?
There's no one number, because the price changes every trading day. Check where COMEX copper is today, then call a yard and ask what it pays for bare bright, the top copper grade. Expect that to sit below the COMEX number, with lower grades further under.
