Selling instead of scraping copper transformers?

[hyderconsulting]

I had an old friend of mine I hadn't seen in five years stop by my shop last week to buy some electronic items I salvaged out of surplus electronic equipment and computers. As he was nosing around in all the boxes of stuff I had and he noticed my stash of transformers I had for copper scrap. He asked about what I was doing with them and then chastised(?) me for that saying he could buy them from me and put them to good use in his electronics he builds from scratch. I told him that the reason why I hadn't kept them for resale before now was that (1) they don't sell very well on ebay especially since they are heavy to ship and the manufacturer's rarely put the blankety blank specs on the the silly things so you can figure out what to call them and (2) I hadn't met anyone else in person except him interested in buying them.
If anyone knows of some business or person who would buy used copper transformers and other salvaged electronic/electrical parts for resale on a regular basis then please post them here for everyone to see. I do fairly well at times selling salvaged items like large electrolytic caps, toggle switches, barrier strips, ferrite chokes, relays and other electronic items on ebay. It can be profitable selling them this way but also it is a lot of work and hassle to say the least. It would be easier to have a consistent buyer to sell them in bulk.
Please post if you know. Regards, Chris.

P.S. Noxx may shift this post to the wanted or buy/sale section of the forum instead. He knows better where it belongs than me.

 

[butcher]

in my area there are hamfest's where ham radio operators and electronic enthusiest gather to trade, also you could place add in classified of your paper, or a magazine like Nuts and Volts, I have saved electronic parts for years, to build many projects, a special project was for an elderly 90 year old friend of mine, he and his wife are deaf, I built a pagers that vibrate so they could get the others attention or call the other, these were basically radio tranmitters and reciever's with a small motor and offset weight, and a door bell with stobe light, this strobe light was also used for an visual inicator for other portions of the circuit, a smoke detector was modified to activate the strobe light, as well as a bed shacker which was a medium size motor with offset weight, made them other things also like a cooking timer with a light, doing these projects helped them and I improved my electronic skills.

 

[Chumbawamba]

Chris, what butcher said about hamfests. Try to find one in or near your area and buy a seller's stall the next time on comes around. Bring a bunch of assorted electronic parts in saleable condition and see how well you do. Hand out business cards and let your buyers and browsers know there's plenty more where it came from.

You could also try posting an ad in your local craigslists in the appropriate categories, and also maybe let the local high school and college instructors in appropriate classes know that you have surplus for sale. After a while you will have a good customer base just from word of mouth.

I have a host of regular buyers who come to my shop for anything from little components or parts to entire loads of stuff. The truck is to find people who are serious and have money (most important and will buy your stuff at a price negotiated beforehand in bulk no questions asked.

I would never bother trying to sell items or components piecemeal on eBay. Sure, you can make a business of it, if you're organized and disciplined (two things I am definitely not, at least not at this point in my life). I have a friend in NY who does this and makes a good living, selling old WWII surplus electronics, modern electronics components, and everything in between. But I find it tedious to sell in this way, especially on eBay, which is a complete joke by now.