Basically the title why is it valuable enough for ppl to steal meters of copper from train rails but the copper wire you get in the store is dirt cheap. I just don’t understand the difference I guess
Edit: damn apparently it’s much more complex than I thought, thanks for all the comments!
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It’s not. Currently the market price is $3.98 /lb. The money is in the volume. Copper thefts are generally large volumes like the track you mentioned. If you have easy access to unprotected metal and a truck to move it, it becomes pretty simple to steal a few thousand pounds of the stuff. Further, it’s easy to melt down and sell so you can cash it out pretty quick too. Since there’s a large legal market for copper scrap, you wouldn’t look out of place selling a few tonnes of it either.
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