My stepfather was a major scrapper in the 60s. He worked in a scrap yard. He'd take the copper wire from starters and alternators he'd buy from the yard and pay for a two-week trip every year. I didn't live with them but would watch him when I'd visit. He'd get about .10/lb. I never really thought about it one way or another at the time. I wish I had, cause I spent about twenty years working two jobs trying to get by. He'd been dead about 15 years when my step-brother (his son) got me started in the scrap business by buying and selling batteries. I could have done a lot better all those years than getting parttime jobs in gas stations and driving taxis. Funny thing is, back in the 70s I even had a PT job driving a car carrier hauling junk cars to a scrap yard. Still didn't register that I could do better selling to the yard, myself.