buying from scrap yards?

[brickyard]

Anyone every buy from scrapyards? Seems like a great place to get antique stuff. A machine shop from the early 1900's has been completely looted of everything. I'd pay decent money for some of the gears, hooks, industrial looking stuff.

On another note, there's an old factory in a city I travel to monthly. I always stop by to take pictures cuz it's a very photogenic building. Scrappers have already gotten most everything, but it's still in worse shape every time. There are a couple of signs and some fire alarms that are too high for scrappers to get too without a ladder. This entire site is going to be demolished. I've tried to get in touch with the owners to no avail. I'm thinking my best bet is to bribe one of the contractors or the guard at the gate. They have to know this stuff is getting scrapped every night.

 

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[pepperj]

It's the old/new word of "liability" I used to let certain folks into the yard to pick as I was small enough to control the picking, and I knew the person. Most yards have a blanket policy of no pickers as it's hard enough ensure safety amongst the staff, but add a person looking in and around piles of scrap is a recipe for somebody getting hurt. The dumping of truck, bins, and free throwing of metal can be added to the reasons.

When scrap comes into the facility from a company there is a request that everything is to be scrapped and nothing is for savaged for resale. Reasons being the items are defective, out of date, returns, patent, test, or any other reason and the yard complies to the request.

Since we live in such a time where everybody likes to sue everybody for any reason, the item sold is at the scrap yard for one reason and it has been deemed that it has reached it's end of life usage, and it goes to wrought. Selling a piece of scrap to a person that sells it again and it gets repurposed and causes injury or damage, then the lawyers are just lining up to have lunch on the yards pocket book.

So it gets to be one of these catch 22 things where damn if I do and damn if i don't when it came to selling items. You may hit a yard that like myself owned, I saved the interesting items from being destroyed and sold many items that they been used in movies, ads, art pieces, landscape design, and never had a problem until I got a call from a good buddy that said you know that ladder I bought from you.... I saw that big old headlight coming through the tunnel heading right for me, so to speak and I just replied I don't recall ever selling a ladder to you, as I cut them all up into scrap always have and always will, sorry. The way the story went was a contractor borrowed the dude's ladder, it broke, the contractor's insurance company was suing buddy's home insurance company and they wanted to know where this ladder came from, and now you know why yards don't sell items, sorry.

 

[brickyard]

Thanks for the response. It's great insight into the business. I'm guessing my best bet is to get a low level employee or security guard to look the other way with some cash. The owners of the property would be concerned with liability and $100 is nothing to someone who paid $8 million for the place.

 

[pepperj]

Thanks for the response. It's great insight into the business. I'm guessing my best bet is to get a low level employee or security guard to look the other way with some cash. The owners of the property would be concerned with liability and $100 is nothing to someone who paid $8 million for the place.

It always sounds good until they owner shows up.
Here's a short one, a dude was paying an inside guy to spend 10 minutes in the scrap bin.
One day the owner drives in locks the gates and phones the cops.
The cops show up and ask him what's up? He states that he paid the inside guy off, inside guy looks over and says he has never seen the lying thief before.
Dude goes to jail, inside guy gets a pat on the shoulder.
Always better to go to the guy at the top, sometimes one is surprised at the response.

 

[brickyard]

I was thinking of the huge abandoned factory I want some signs, etc from. It's in an area that is ground zero for scrapping in that city. Every time I see it, it's in worse shape. The stuff I want, I couldn't get it without tools and a ladder. I've seen contractors there on occasion. Nothing in there is worth getting arrested over. Wish it was like MD'ing where you could waive liability.

 

[clovis97]

One other reason that some yards don't allow picking is because they don't want to tick off any of the customers that sold the scrap to the yard.

I know that it is sometimes hard for an outsider to understand, but it is the truth. There is a percentage of people out there that don't want anyone making money off something they sold as scrap.

Example:

A scrapper cleans out a barn, and finds a large, antique, solid copper pot. He sells it for $3.00 a pound and is thrilled for the $24 payout. A picker comes by, sees the pot in a bin, and offers $50 for it. The picker puts in on CL or ebay and gets $300 for it. The scrapper learns about it and gets ticked, even though he sold it fair and square, and no longer will sell loads to this yard. In his opinion, the scrap yard took him for an additional $276 profit.

Yeah, I know what you are thinking. 98% of us would agree...ownership ended when it was sold to the yard for $24....but there are a lot of people who, instead of learning from it, live the rest of their lives hating that scrap yard, figuring that "they took money out of my kid's mouths."

If you don't believe that mentality exists, go hand out at a scrap yard for a few days. I promise that it will change your mind.

 

[markmopar]

I hear ya.
At the same time, I've seen some scrap yard owners that were just as bad, or worse.
Once I walked into a yard just as they were sending out a truck to the shredder. One of the cars on the trailer had a rear in it that I could have used. So I asked.
Me: Hey, would you sell me that rear out of the Charger?
Maybe. What'll ya give me?
Me: $100
I want $300
Me: Nah, I can't do that. I'll go $125.
Nope, $300 or off it goes.
Me: So, you'd rather scrap for maybe 5 bucks instead of making $125? Without having to lift a finger?
Yep.
Me: Talk about steppin' over dollars to pick up pennies. Oh, well. Scrap it then. See ya.

 

[pepperj]

One other reason that some yards don't allow picking is because they don't want to tick off any of the customers that sold the scrap to the yard.

I know that it is sometimes hard for an outsider to understand, but it is the truth. There is a percentage of people out there that don't want anyone making money off something they sold as scrap.

Example:

A scrapper cleans out a barn, and finds a large, antique, solid copper pot. He sells it for $3.00 a pound and is thrilled for the $24 payout. A picker comes by, sees the pot in a bin, and offers $50 for it. The picker puts in on CL or ebay and gets $300 for it. The scrapper learns about it and gets ticked, even though he sold it fair and square, and no longer will sell loads to this yard. In his opinion, the scrap yard took him for an additional $276 profit.

Yeah, I know what you are thinking. 98% of us would agree...ownership ended when it was sold to the yard for $24....but there are a lot of people who, instead of learning from it, live the rest of their lives hating that scrap yard, figuring that "they took money out of my kid's mouths."

If you don't believe that mentality exists, go hand out at a scrap yard for a few days. I promise that it will change your mind.

It an age old problem of greed and that will never go away no how with man kind.

It's always a good thing to sell something and to make profit, if the buyer is happy and the seller is, that should be the equation for a good deal and it should end there.

But now comes greed and people always see a way of thinking that they got screwed over somehow.

Profit vs greed

True example: A woman buys a painting at a garage sale for a few bucks, sells it to an antique/junk store for around a thousand, the seller is rubbing her hands with the tidy sum made. The store owner sold it for around 14 thousand to a gallery, he's smiling with joy having made a tidy sum on the deal. Now the kicker the gallery sells the painting for a million dollars and they also must of been very happy with the good fortune. This happened in the early eighties and in the mid eighties I was picking his store to make ends meet and he told me of this amazing story, as the newspaper articles were framed and hung on the wall. I asked him about the lost fortune that he could of made, and he corrected me quickly by saying this to me, "I made a lot of money off this painting and that made me happy. That's where it ended I sold it made my profit and never should you regret the next person making one also" That statement has stuck with me for 30 yrs and has guided me through many deals where I knew there was lots of room for the person to do their next deal.
The funny part is the woman felt screwed over after she read about what the painting sold for....

 

[clovis97]

You are right, pepperj. It is about greed.

 

[clovis97]

Some other reasons the yards don't let people pick:

1. Liability, for the picker, while on the scrap yard's property. Our local yard can have two fork trucks moving as fast as they can, racing around the building, at any given time. If they run over a picker, or accidentally dump a scrap lawn mower on someone, there is going to be a lawsuit.

2. It just isn't worth it. I was at the local SY a while back, and some dude waltzes in wanting braided #1 copper wire for jewelry junk his wife was making. The dude offered to buy it for $3.00 a pound, even though the yard was paying more than that when it came into the door. The owner tried to oblige, just wanting to help someone out, but then the dude got picky, and wanted to dig through the entire gaylord of insulated copper "to look for all the good stuff." He then offered to buy it for $5 a pound, but wanted someone to strip the wire first (not a joke). To most small SY's, it just isn't worth the hassle to make a few extra dollars so someone can go play artist for a while.

 

[pepperj]

Some other reasons the yards don't let people pick:

1. Liability, for the picker, while on the scrap yard's property. Our local yard can have two fork trucks moving as fast as they can, racing around the building, at any given time. If they run over a picker, or accidentally dump a scrap lawn mower on someone, there is going to be a lawsuit.

2. It just isn't worth it. I was at the local SY a while back, and some dude waltzes in wanting braided #1 copper wire for jewelry junk his wife was making. The dude offered to buy it for $3.00 a pound, even though the yard was paying more than that when it came into the door. The owner tried to oblige, just wanting to help someone out, but then the dude got picky, and wanted to dig through the entire gaylord of insulated copper "to look for all the good stuff." He then offered to buy it for $5 a pound, but wanted someone to strip the wire first (not a joke). To most small SY's, it just isn't worth the hassle to make a few extra dollars so someone can go play artist for a while.

The SY owner wants to accommodating to everyone that comes through the gates, because that person might just be a great contact, or reference for some future business. your example is what happens when a person requests to purchase something and then turns into a PITA and the whole transaction starts to slide from there. This happens, then the owner gets more frazzled each time till the point where an extra few bucks isn't worth the stress of dealing with the pickers.

Some yards have installed a resales department for architectural, knick knacks, and other bits and bobs for the general public to buy.

 

[ellarich]

It depends what they are in business for. In addition, scrap yards may sell parts from old parts to independent buyers or repair workshops.

 

[wavecrazed]

here in florida they have to have a secondary dealers license. Most of the yards stopped dealing there pile of stuff.