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In my late teens back in the early 70’s my dad gave me an old wrecker tow truck and told me to earn my wages. But many years before i literally grew up in a junkyard removing parts and scrap metal from old cars like brass radiators, the copper wiring, the lead in the batteries and the pot metal trim, back then baling scrap or car bodies brought $20 a ton.

The average junk car was from the 50’s and 60’s, very heavy cars, no plastic much in them.

I cruised many a neighborhood looking for a junker, most i picked up for free just because the owner did not want to pay to have it hauled off.

So here i am, 17 or so, i usually find two cars a day, they average 2,700 pounds unless you get a Lincoln or a Caddy and they were at least 3,200 pounds. So at a penny a pound i could get $50 to $60 a day just for the car body’s, then i always pulled the better scrap parts off, sometimes there were good parts like a decent engine but usually i stripped them of the brass, copper and lead.

It was a simple process taking them to the mill, one popular one was near Fremont Ca, Niles as we called it, many a black or mexican person did what i did, we mostly had an old towtruck, we brought it in on two wheels, it was all weighed and we got into line, while waiting someone would inspect to see if the fuel tank was empty, punctured or removed or if it wasn’t loaded with garbage or even rocks.

I would remove all but one lug nut each side, then i would pull up under the claw, i dropped it from the wrecker and removed the last lug nuts, when the claw or magnet on the crane hoisted it the tires fell off and i tossed them into the bed of the truck. At that place they had what looked like a car wash but instead of water they used fire and burnt anything like plastics or upholstery, when it came out often a worker in gear would pull wads of burnt wiring out and put it in barrels. No EPA back then.

Then i would head back to the scales, got weighed again and took my ticket to the payout office and got cash on the spot.

Average week i could easily make $200 and sometimes much more.
And this was when you only got 65 cents an hour wage, gas was 35 to 50 cents a gallon. And believe it or not in the Bay Area of California.

Some years later when too many stolen cars were being brought in and the mood changed about clean air it all came to a screeching halt. You still can haul in scrap metals last i heard as the prices went up for everything but you gotta have permits and license to do anything. And of course car bodies are nothing like they used to be.

But i made good money at it, it was dirty work, but i had fun doing it. To this day i still seperate my scrap steal, brass and copper which i have hundreds of pounds of to use in a future casting forge i want to build. And for artwork.

In summary i can say this, i can spot a mile away brass or even steel from china, i swear they deliberately made it a much poorer grade, porous, casting flaws, brittle.

I’m glad we can issue that fact and just get more steal mills running again in America making better steal.