We feel that a better informed customer will be a better long term customer. We want to help you understand what your metal is and what it is worth. Often, cleaning up the metal by removing non-valuable parts or sorting better can result in a much higher value to you and us. We sell all of our scrap metal to large or national metal processors who use standard industry grades and volumes for buying. The value of scrap metal comes from the type and quality of the metal. The more pure copper, alluminum or nickel that scrap metal has, the more valuable it is. Mixed scrap metal is always priced at the lowest price metal. If you have a bucket of aluminum sheet with some clean and some dirty (with screws or insullation) it will all be priced at the lower aluminum dirty price because that is the price we can wholesale it at. Sorting and cleaning your scrap metal may be worth the extra time. Below is a list of common types of scrap metal and the general guidelines for sorting. Please keep in mind that these are guidelines and individual pieces of scrap metal may be diffrerent. Copper #1: Solid copper that has no brass or significant corrosion. Most copper tubing and copper pipes are Copper #1 if they fittings are already removed and they are not too corroded. Copper with thicker than a pencil lead and with the insulation removed can also be sold as Copper #1. Copper #2: Solid copper, but can have up to 5% other metal or is significantly corroded and discolored. This can also have sodering on the pipes. Copper pipes with the brass fittings still attached are considered Copper #2. Copper with that is not insulated but thiner than a pencil lead is also considered Copper #2. Aluminum Cans: (our most popular scrap metal). Aluminum cans from soda, pop, beer, etc.. No steel cans are allowed. Cans must be relatively clean and dry.