Clean, unalloyed copper solids — bus bars, clippings, commutator segments, clean pipe and heavy wire — with a minimum purity that lets it go straight to a refinery or brass mill.
Clean, unalloyed copper solids — bus bars, clippings, commutator segments, clean pipe and heavy wire — with a minimum purity that lets it go straight to a refinery or brass mill.
Candy is clean copper scrap that is not fine enough to be bare bright wire but is otherwise unalloyed and uncoated: bus bars, heavy clippings, clean copper tubing with the fittings cut off, commutator segments and wire heavier than 1/16 inch. It must be free of burnt wire, solder, paint, brass and other alloys. Light copper pipe with soldered joints does not qualify and drops to No. 2.
In practice yards sort No. 1 by eye and by magnet, and the biggest source is plumbing — demolished buildings yield copper pipe, cylinders and fittings that are cut clean to make the grade.
No. 1 copper sells at a small discount to bare bright and a larger premium over No. 2. Secondary copper smelters and refiners, brass mills and continuous-cast rod plants are the buyers. The export trade runs from the US and Europe to China, India and South-East Asia, and within Europe to the German, Belgian and Spanish refineries.
Code: ReMA Candy (No. 1 heavy copper)
The main importing countries for this grade — each links to the country page with its mills, smelters, price references and named firms.