What reduces an offer, and what you can fix first
Every deduction comes from something a buyer could not confirm or expects to spend money on. Most of it can be improved in an afternoon, before anyone quotes.
Reels stored on bare dirt, exposed to weather
An offer is a judgment about risk, and each line in it comes from something the buyer could not see, could not confirm, or expects to spend money on. Sellers tend to hear the total as a verdict on their cable. It is more often a verdict on the paperwork and the storage, and those are the two things a seller can still change the week before a review.
What follows is the short version of what reduces an offer on surplus wire in Tennessee. None of it is secret, and most of it can be improved before anyone quotes, which is the reason for writing it down. Fix what you can, disclose what you cannot, and the number moves closer to the value of the metal rather than the value of the guess.
At a glance
- Largest deduction
- Unknown identification
- Next
- Footage that cannot be proved
- Storage
- An open yard is a discount
- Usually fixable
- Tags, ends and sorting
Missing tags, unreadable print, unknown footage
Identification is the largest single deduction we make, because everything else follows from it. A reel with an original tag and a readable print can be priced as a specific product. The same reel with neither becomes an estimate of size, construction and length, and estimates are priced with a margin for being wrong. The margin is not a penalty; it is what any buyer has to carry to take on the risk.
Unknown footage sits inside the same problem. If the tag has gone and the wrap print carries no length, the footage on the drum can only be estimated from diameter and wrap thickness, or established by weighing the reel and subtracting the tare. That is real work, and the buyer who does it has to allow for being wrong in either direction. A measured reel removes both the work and the allowance.
What you can do: retag reels from the original purchase record where it survives, photograph the print in two places, measure the flange and the depth of the wrap, and write unknown where it is unknown. A stated unknown is a smaller deduction than a confident wrong number, and it is the difference between a buyer asking a question and a buyer assuming the worst of the whole list. Measure once, write it down, and photograph the tape against the flange.
Water in the ends, torn jackets, crushed reels
Water in an open end is the most common damage we find and the least often disclosed. It wicks along the strands under the jacket, and on aluminum it leaves oxide that must be cut back before the cable can be terminated. A reel with wet ends is still usable at a shorter length, but the buyer has to allow for the cutback and the loss. On a small remnant that allowance can take most of the value.
Torn jackets and crushed reels are handling damage rather than storage damage. A jacket torn at the pay-off exposes the insulation or the shield, and a crushed drum has usually kinked the inner layers, which no longer pay off straight. Both reduce usable footage, and kinked cable is often unrecoverable for the whole length that the kink occupies. Photographs of the drum edge settle the question faster than any description.
What you can do: seal and tape the ends, photograph any damage plainly, restack reels that are leaning, and move anything standing in water. Where a flange is split, say so before lifting, because the rigging changes when a flange is unsound and so does the risk to whoever is standing under it. A reel described accurately gets lifted once and loaded without argument. Drainage is part of storage, so check where the water goes when it rains.
A disclosed fault is a deduction. A fault found on the truck is a re-price of the whole load.
Mixed pallets and very short cut lengths
A mixed pallet is one line to the seller and many lines to the buyer. Someone has to identify each reel, decide whether it belongs in reusable stock, and separate it from the rest. That sorting is charged against the pallet, which is why a mixed pallet of sound cable can price below a single clean reel carrying the same total footage. The labor is the same whether the cable on the pallet is good or poor.
Very short lengths are in the same position. A fifty foot cut is useful to the crew that cut it and to almost nobody else. Below a certain length, cable stops being a product and starts being insulated copper or aluminum, and it is valued the second way no matter what the tag on it says. Keep the short cuts together, label the bin by construction, and describe them as recovery material.
What you can do: split pallets by construction and size before the review, put short cuts into a labelled bin of their own, and keep one reel of each construction out as a sample rather than describing nine of them in a paragraph. The sample does more for the offer than the paragraph does, because it shows the buyer a whole reel instead of a sentence about nine. Label the sample with the line number it represents.
Unusual constructions and awkward handling
Obsolete and unusual constructions narrow the market. Cable built to a standard nobody now specifies, a size that has been superseded, or a shielded construction with a non-standard shield may still be good cable, but few buyers can use it, and a small market prices accordingly. That is a deduction about the audience rather than about the copper, and it is worth saying so plainly on the list. Name the construction as precisely as the label allows, including any standard printed after the size.
Handling is the deduction sellers notice least. A reel that needs a crane, a reel on a mezzanine, a reel behind a machine that must be disconnected before anything can move: all of that is cost before the cable reaches a trailer. We plan for it, and the plan is paid for out of the offer. Sites that clear a path the week before a review usually find that the number improves.
What you can do: give us the weight and the access in advance, clear a path to the reels, and photograph the approach as well as the reel. A clear aisle is worth more than a careful description of a difficult one, and a reel that can be rolled out to a door is a different proposition from one that has to be rigged over a machine to reach the same door.
Questions about deductions
Does a partial reel always bring less than a full one?
No. A partial reel of a construction someone needs, with a readable tag and dry ends, can be worth more per foot than a full reel of a size nobody is ordering. Footage sets the total, but construction, condition and identification decide whether there is a buyer at all. Send the footage and the tag photograph, and we will price the reel that exists.
How does outdoor storage change an offer?
It moves a reel from reusable stock toward weather-exposed stock. We look at the wrap, the flanges and the ends rather than at the calendar, because a reel on gravel with a sealed end comes through seasons that would ruin a reel standing in a pothole. There is no fixed percentage in the deduction; it follows the condition actually in front of us.
What can we fix before you review the lot?
Retag what can be retagged, tape and seal the ends, stand the reels upright off the dirt, split mixed pallets by construction, and photograph the tags and the print. None of that changes the cable, and all of it changes the number, because it removes the assumptions a buyer would otherwise have to price into the offer before setting foot on the site.
Why does a crushed reel matter if the cable inside looks fine?
Because a crushed drum usually means the inner wraps were pressed or kinked, and kinked cable does not pay off straight. It also means the reel is harder to lift and roll, so handling cost rises every time the material moves. Photograph the damage and state the footage you believe is sound; the remainder is priced as recovery material instead.
Other seller guides
- Reading a reel tagWhat the markings on a flange actually tell a buyer
- Footage by weightTurning a weighed reel into a defensible length
- Copper and aluminumTwo conductor metals, and how to tell them apart
- ACSR and AAACSteel-cored and all-alloy overhead conductor
- High voltage safetyWhat not to touch before the clearance is issued
Send us your reel list
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Ready to send the reel list?
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Want the deductions fixed first?
Send the list and photographs, and we will tell you which faults are worth correcting before the review.
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