The metal markets are coming back!!!????

If nothing else, being a scrap metal dealer is interesting, if not entirely unprofitable.

I recently had the displeasure of attempting business with a married couple who own a scrap yard, and are completely bat shit crazy. The names are changed, in order to protect the mentally volatile.

My business partner, Lyle, and I find this place via a referral from another customer. This place is way the hell out in the middle of no-damn-where. We literally had to turn off the paved road and dodge livestock to get there. But much to our surprise this place had a lot of scrap and junk cars. Lyle and I figured we could be in luck, very few other scrap buyers would venture this far off the beaten path.

Lyle and I introduce ourselves to Gwen and Will. After about ten minutes of discussing business, Will leads us to pile of scrap he wanted to sell. Lyle looks it over and gives him a price. Will is thrilled, he sells us the metal immediately. As Lyle and I load our bounty into the truck, Will fetches Gwen. He excitedly tells her about the good prices we just paid him. Gwen seemed impressed with us as well. All seems to be going well; Lyle and I have made another good customer.

"Hey boys," Will says to us. "Do y'all cut scrap off junk cars?"

"Yessir!" I reply. "But we usually only do large quantities."

"I got a 150 cars to cut. Is that enough for you?"

Mine and Lyle's excitement is almost palpable. In these lean times, this is a mother load of scrap; enough to pay the next mortgage. We make an appointment with Will to come back in two days to start harvesting the scrap; the whole process will take a week. Will is so excited about our prices that he even volunteers to loan us his forklift and an employee to help. For the rest of the day Lyle and I are floating on cloud nine.

For those of you who are not roving metal buyers, this is how it works. Harvesting scrap off junk cars is like shopping at Wal Mart. There are thousands of different kinds of scrap on automobiles. Guys like me go into old junk yards and take various parts off the cars. Then we go to "check out." We lay out all the stuff we got, tell the customer what it is worth, then pay.

Lyle and I arrive on our appointed day to start harvesting the scrap. Will walks out to our truck, there is an odd look in his eyes.

"You boys just go down there and look at all them cars. When you are done, come back here and we will talk price."

"Hey Will, no need for all that" I say. "The prices we gave you the other day are still good."

"No, that ain't what I want. I want one price for all of it."

"So you just want us to look at the entire junk yard and give you one price for all the scrap on it?"

"That's how we do business here boys. If you don't like it, you can just go on down the road." Will is getting kind of cold.

"Well, we'll have a look." I attempt to smooth him over.

Driving out into the yard, Lyle and I huddle. This is not the way anybody really does business. It would be like going to Wal Mart, loading your buggy and then guessing how much it is all worth.

Out in the junk yard, Lyle and I look around. There are not 150 cars, there are over 1,000. Most of the scrap has already been removed. What is sitting in the field is mostly hunks of steel and plastic, neither of which scrap guys like us buy.

"Dude" Lyle says to me. "Somebody done hit this yard. They just got the expensive stuff and what is easy to remove. About 1 in 10 cars actually have anything valuable. Dirty, just talk him into letting us get to work and doing our thing. We planned a week here, I just want to get to work." Lyle lacks several things, including timing and patience.

"Lyle slow down. Let me take the lead talking to this man. Whatever you do, don't say what you just said. Will thinks he's got a gold mine out here."

"Alright then, but lets go."

"Give me a fucking minute Lyle. I am thinking."

"Fuck man. I don't want to sit out here all morning while you just fucking think. LETS FUCKING GET GOING."

With a half ass plan in my head, I bow to Lyle's impatience. We make our way back to Will and Gwen's office.

"So men, how much are you going to pay us today?" Gwen says as we walk in.

"Miss Gwen, can I ask you and Will a few questions right fast?" I say.

"Go right ahead honey."

"Have any other scrap or core buyers cut in the southern corner of the yard?" I ask.

"Yeah!" Breaks in Lyle "Looks like somebody done gone in there and got the high dollar and easy stuff. I looked at about 30 cars and only 3 of them have any real money left on them."

Immediately Lyle looks at me with the "OH SHIT, I WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK" face.

Gwen and Will go through the roof.

"If you boys are gonna be like that, get your shit and leave." Will says angrily.

"We ain't gonna be crooked again." Gwen says with venom.

Gwen and Will are in a shit storm of anger. I glare at Lyle. Sheepishly he sneaks out of the door during the tirade of heat from Gwen and Will.

I am a tenured veteran of sales; I have dealt with many angry customers before. After five minutes, the situation calms down and cooler heads prevail. I see an aerial photo of their junk yard on the wall.

"Will I am a little turned around on all this. If you would, can you show me on this aerial photo where the cars that have everything on them are?"

"Sure, it is this corner right here." He points to where Lyle only found 3 with scrap.

"Yeah!" Gwen breaks in. "But this corner right here, we had one of our boys cut the scrap off." She walks up and points to the same place that Will just pointed to.

I am really confused now. So I nicely ask for them to go over the photo with me again. With Will on my left and Gwen on my right, both pointing to the same spot; sanity leaves the room. For five minutes the two of them keep pointing to the same spot. He says the scrap is there, she says it isn't. Neither of them notice that they are contradicting each other, in fact they are looking at each other and nodding in agreement. Then as they talk, English breaks down. I suddenly realize that both of them are using words from English, but no real sentences are being made. I caught this one from him.

"When the market got up there, we had to buy a four wheeler but the man from the state said that our permit was fine." Trust me when I say, I did NOT miss anything in the conversation, this was just non-sequator.

Suddenly and with no waring Will turns around, sits in an old chair and lights a smoke. Gwen just walked off. My head is swimming, but I am a champ, not going to give up. Before I can speak, Will starts talking.

"You see, your money don't mean nothing to me. I got gold, lots of it. I told everyone in the county to buy gold last year. I bought $40,000 in gold last year, now it is worth over half a million."

I keep up with gold prices. Gold has not gone up over 10 times in the last year. "Damn good investment Will! Did you leverage to get those kind of profits?"

"Leverage? What the hell is that? No I GOT GOLD. I got it hid up on the hollers, no one will ever find it."

It occurs to me that this guy is either insane or fucking with me. He has a very serious, yet a far away look on his face. I stopped to really take a look and Gwen and Will. There is perhaps 8 teeth between the two of them. Neither looked like they use a shower much. Both of them were smoking cheap cigarettes like freight trains.

"I don't understand you scrap men. Y'all talk about Platinum going down. It is the same price it was last year. I know, I check it every day."

Will would be correct to say that Platinum was the same price as last year: if you believe that $1,200 per ounce is the same as $2,300 per ounce.

"Hell I got so much going on, I don't have time to fool with you. We have already done a bunch of business today. Gwen what have we done so far today?"

Gwen walks in and looks at me very seriously. "$140! And it looks like we are about to sell $200 more!"

"Honey you forgot about that old Ford headlight I sold! That's another $40. You see I got a lot going on."

I am desperately trying to understand the situation I am in. That is when Will hits me again.

"Really, I am an investor. I watch Bill O'Reily and listen to Rush Limbaugh. I know all about investing. Hell I'll just leave that scrap on them old cars. If there ain't more of it, and there will be, I just sell it off to the shredder. If just leave it laying, there will be more of it. Did you know that the shredder called and offered me $12 on my steel?"

"Did not know that Will. That is one hell of a price." I know he is out of his mind now. That morning I had talked to the shredder. A good friend of mine works there. The shredder would be lucky to sell steel for $7."

"I am telling you metal is going to be back at all time high prices in less than 30 days."

"Will, you are the only one I know that optimistic. What makes you say that?"

He stands up and whispers in my ear, his big secret. "Japan is going nuclear."

"Really?" I ask as he sits back down. I am feeling terribly lost.

"South Korea too. Both of them are going nuclear. They are gonna need all the scrap that they can get. I heard it on Bill O'Reily."

"Hmmmm." I am speechless. "You think I might could check back with you in 30 days when scrap is higher?"

Gwen and Will shake my hand and let me leave on that one.

I jump in the truck. Lyle winces.

"I know, I know, I fucked up. Dude don't punch me or anything."

"Lyle, get us the fuck out of here as fast as you can; these people are fucking nuts."

Later on, Lyle and I run into another scrap buyer that we know.

"Hey man, you ever buy any scrap from Will and Gwen up in the holler."

He starts laughing. "I tried too, they are bat shit crazy."

Dirty Ert