What an empty reel is worth

The four things that set the value

1. Flange size

Different sizes have different buyers. Small 24 to 30 inch spools go to makers, shops and event planners. The 36 to 42 inch range is the table and contractor size, and the most consistently in demand. From 48 inches up, buyers are growers, ranches and contractors with large cable to store, and fewer of them want each reel. Size also decides freight cost: about 416 empty 24 inch spools fit on a 53 foot flatbed, but only 16 to 18 reels of 96 inches.

2. Sound wood

Flat, whole flanges and tight staves. A split flange, rot at the edge where the reel stood on wet ground, or swollen plywood ends its resale life. Sun matters too: reels that have spent a summer in the high desert are often dried and checked.

3. A clean arbor hole

The centre hole takes the spindle of a reel stand. If it is torn, oval or chewed by forklift tines, the reel will not turn true, and a contractor will not buy it. Bolted reels often have steel plates at the arbor hole, which protect it.

4. How many, and how alike

A set of matching reels is worth more than the same number of mixed ones, and a stack that fills a good share of a deck is cheaper to collect per reel than a handful. Quantity does not change what a single reel is worth to its buyer, but it changes what it costs us to bring it to them.

What lowers the value to nothing

Being returnable. A reel stencilled as the property of a maker or distributor is not ours or yours to sell; it goes back to its owner. Being steel or plastic, which nearly always means the same thing. And being past repair, in which case the reel goes to recycling.

Nailed versus bolted

Nailed reels are one-way reels, built to be used once and thrown away; most building-wire reels are nailed. Bolted reels are heavier and held together with through-bolts; they carry utility and large cable and are often returnable. A one-way bolted reel in good condition is worth more than a nailed reel of the same size, because it lasts. See nailed and bolted reels.

Does the cable maker matter?

Not much, for a one-way reel. Buyers care about size and condition, not the logo. It matters only when the maker wants the reel back: then its value to you is the deposit or the goodwill, and its value to us is zero.

Why we don't publish prices

Because there is no honest single number. The same 36 inch reel can be worth a fair amount to a table maker if it is clean, little if it is weathered, and nothing if its flange is split. We would rather look at your reels and make an offer than publish a rate that is wrong for most of them.

How to get the best price for your reels

Store them under cover, or at least off bare ground, standing on edge with the arbor holes level. Keep matching reels together. Pull any loose nails and cut cable ends off the drum. Do not stack large reels on top of each other: the bottom flanges crack. And call before they have sat outside for a year; sun, rain and sprinklers do more damage to an empty reel than the job it came from.

When you send photos, include one of the whole stack, one close-up of a flange face, and one of an arbor hole. Those three pictures tell a buyer almost everything. A stencil, if there is one, is worth a photo too, because it may mean the reel is returnable.

What a reel is worth to whom

A contractor values a reel by whether it will carry cable safely: arbor hole, staves, flanges. A grower values it by size and sturdiness. A maker or an event planner values it by looks: clean wood, matching sets, no stencils or paint. That is why the same reel can be worth more to one buyer than another, and why we sort what comes off a run by who will want it, not just by size.