Copper grades, explained.

Bare bright and #1 copper

Bare bright is the highest-value copper scrap grade and the one every seller should know by sight. The trade definition is strict: clean, bare, uncoated, unalloyed copper wire or cable, no thinner than No. 16 gauge, free of paint, impurities, and tarnishing — only negligible patina is tolerated. Copper pipe and tubing are explicitly excluded from this classification, no matter how clean they are. In practice, bare bright is stripped, shiny, reddish-orange copper wire — the stuff that looks like a new penny stretched into a strand. #1 copper is the next step down and the second most valuable grade: clean, untinned, uncoated, unalloyed wire and cable not smaller than No. 16 gauge, plus clean unsoldered copper tubing, clean copper solids and punchings, bus bars, and clippings. Burnt wire can qualify only if it is free of excess ash and nonmetallics. The practical difference between the two is condition and form: bare bright is pristine stripped wire; #1 is clean copper that is allowed to be tubing, solids, or wire with minor handling marks. Both grades share the same enemy — anything that is not copper.

#2 copper and light copper

#2 copper is miscellaneous unalloyed copper scrap of nominal 96% copper content, with a 94% minimum. This is the working grade of the scrap world: paint, solder, light coatings, tarnish, and corrosion are accepted, tubing with soldered joints is generally accepted, and wire thinner than 16 gauge that would otherwise qualify as bare bright falls into #2. If your copper has lived a real life — painted, soldered into a plumbing system, dulled by weather — it is probably #2, and there is nothing wrong with that; it is still valuable copper, just priced for the extra processing. Light copper sits below it: miscellaneous unalloyed copper scrap of nominal 92% copper content, 88% minimum — typically sheet copper, gutters, downspouts, kettles, and similar thin or mixed-form items. The pattern of the ladder is simple: as purity drops and contamination rises, the grade steps down. Every step down reflects real economics — the buyer or mill has to work harder to get clean copper out — which is why cleaning and sorting before you sell is the closest thing to free money in this business.

#1 and #2 insulated wire

A huge share of copper scrap arrives wearing its jacket, and insulated wire has its own two-grade split at the same 16-gauge line. #1 insulated wire is clean, unalloyed, uncoated, untinned copper wire or cable with plastic insulation, 16 gauge or thicker, with the ends cut off. The insulation does not need to be stripped — buyers purchase it on estimated copper-recovery percentage — but if it were stripped, the wire inside should look like bright, shiny copper. #2 insulated wire is unalloyed wire thinner than 16 gauge with heavy, double, or plastic insulation — the typical profile of telecom wiring, extension cords, and electronics cords. Tin or nickel coatings and some corrosion are acceptable here; stripped, it should look like #2 copper. The single most-asked question about insulated wire is whether to strip it. Stripping to clean bare bright earns the highest grade, but it is labor-intensive — generally worthwhile for large volumes or commercial jobs, often not for small household amounts. Mechanical stripping is the compliant route: never burn insulation off. Burning is illegal in many areas, releases toxic fumes, oxidizes the copper, and gets the load downgraded or rejected. If you are unsure whether a batch is #1 or #2 insulated, leave the jacket intact and let the buyer's intake team grade it.

Brass and bronze

Two copper alloys travel through the scrap stream alongside pure copper, and knowing them protects you from misgrading your own material. Brass is copper alloyed with zinc as the principal alloying element — typically 60 to 80% copper and 20 to 40% zinc, sometimes with lead, tin, or other additions. It is bright golden-yellow, like polished gold, darkening to a brown patina with age, and it shows up in plumbing fixtures, valves, faucets, pipe fittings, and musical instruments. Bronze is a copper alloy in which the major alloying element is not zinc or nickel — traditionally tin — typically 80 to 90% copper. It is heavier than brass, with a reddish-brown or dark gold color and a dark patina. Bronze generally commands more than brass in scrap because of its higher copper content, and it comes from statues, water meters, marine components, and machinery bushings. Both are non-magnetic, so the magnet test will not separate them from copper — use color first (copper is reddish-orange, brass golden-yellow, bronze reddish-brown), then weight, sound, and, for definitive chemistry, a handheld XRF analyzer. Keep brass and bronze out of your copper loads: alloy scrap goes to brass mills, ingot makers, and foundries, not to copper cathode refiners, and it is priced as its own category.

Copper questions, answered.