Is stainless the same price as "tin"

My scrap yard tosses whatever you bring them that's magnetic into one separate yard - you have to drive to the separate yard first, drop off your stuff, get weighed, then drive to a non-ferrous yard where the guy at the non-ferrous yard pays you. I have brought in stainless, albeit small amounts such as a kitchen sink, and it all gets listed as 'tin', and I get like 3.5 - 7.5 cents, depending on China's economy (lol), per 100 lbs. It doesn't seem right to me.



Also, when I go to my yard, if I have ferrous metal that's all one type of metal, the people that work the yard tell me to toss it into a certain bin, then when I pull out a mess of various metals, they tell me to toss it into a separate bin. (I help them unload as it goes much faster) Shouldn't I get paid more for ferrous metals that are all one type of metal - because that might be worth more to refiners?

Well, my main concern, and my reason for this post, is to find out if I am trading in stainless steel for pennies to the penny. Do I need to hold it until I have 100lbs of stainless? And if that's the case, how do I know what grades of stainless I have? Wouldn't various grades fetch different sums? Thanks all!

It depends on the yard that your selling to. Some yards don't have separate categories for magnetic stainless. On stainless sinks, some may consider those dirty non magnetic stainless. You need to learn the categories that each of your yards use.

To follow up on my post and Mech's, my main yard does not have a separate category for magnetic stainless. It goes as light iron / tin / shred. They do have categories for non-magnetic stainless, stainless sinks (dirty stainless goes in this) and 316 stainless. I have 2 or 3 other yards that do have a magnetic stainless category.

You're pretty lucky then. I guess I'll just have to trade my SS as magnetic tin. I think if I had 100lbs of the stuff, and I only came to the yard with just that, they might do something for me - I'll try that. Well, thank you, and thank you all, for your advice and time.

On SS sinks if you don't take the magnetic (regular steel) rails off the bottom they usually get tossed in with dirty stainless, around here that's about the same as shred. That may be what you are getting, it usually only takes a couple of good licks with a hammer and a cold chisel to knock these off.

yards buy it here I mix my dirty (with steel) stainless with my magnetic stainless.

Yes! That's what my yard does. When I unload all my ferrous stuff, they place it in different areas.

1.) mix metals scrap (a gutted microwave would go there)
2.) one type of metal (so, the clean sheet metal sides of a washer/dryer could go here.)
3.) Cast iron

I am not sure if they put stainless in a separate area. I didn't pay attention to that the last time I dropped off a nice kitchen sink, I was too new to know what to look for.