Sell your empty reels

What we buy

We buy sound one-way reels: wood, plywood and bolted wood reels that the holder owns outright, with both flanges intact, the drum whole and the arbor hole still round. That covers most of the empties left on Delaware Valley job sites and in distributor yards, because most wooden cable reels are shipped one-way. The catalogue entries marked Sells are the types we collect for payment or for a free pickup, depending on size, count and condition.

We do not buy reels that belong to someone else. A steel reel, or a wooden reel stencilled with a cable maker's name or carrying a deposit tag, is a returnable reel. We tell you so and point you at the maker's return programme instead. Plastic spools and badly damaged wood go to recycling rather than resale.

The three questions that set the outcome

1. Is it yours to sell? One-way, no stencil, no tag. If unsure, photograph the flange face.
2. Can it be used again? Flat flanges, all staves present, a clean arbor hole, no soft or rotten wood.
3. Is there enough of it in one place? One small spool is easy. One 96-inch reel alone is not. Twenty mixed reels at one address make a sensible stop.

The page on what sets the price goes through each factor and why we will not quote a figure before we know the reels.

Ways to sell

• One or two reels: for homeowners, small shops and anyone with a couple of spools left after a job.
• Large loads: yards and sites with dozens or hundreds of reels, loaded by forklift onto a truck.
• Recurring pickup: contractors and distributors who produce empties every week or month.
• How a pickup works: the steps from your list to an empty yard.

What to send

A list is better than a guess, but a rough one is fine. Give the reel type if you know it (nailed wood, plywood, bolted, steel), a flange size per group, the count, the ZIP code and whether a forklift is on site. Two photos, one of a flange face and one from the side, settle most questions before anyone drives out. The request form on this page asks for exactly those things and nothing is preselected, so pick sell, recycle or buy yourself.

Where we collect

Pickups run across Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania and Camden, Gloucester and Burlington counties in New Jersey. The areas pages list the towns, ZIP codes and roads for each county. If you are just outside those counties, ask anyway; a large enough load is often worth the extra miles.

Reels that sell best

Demand follows what people can put straight back to work. In rough order:

• Mid-size nailed wood reels, 36 to 48 inches. Contractors rewind cable onto them, makers turn them into tables, and they stack well on a truck.
• Small plywood and nailed spools, 12 to 30 inches. Light enough to carry, easy to sell one at a time to workshops, growers and hobbyists.
• Clean fiber optic reels. Often built with smooth plywood flanges and a starting slot, popular for rewinding and for furniture.
• Large reels in matched sets. Ten 72-inch reels of the same size are worth far more to a rewinder than ten odd ones.

Reels that rarely sell on: plastic spools (most go to recycling), reels with lagging nails still sticking out of the rims, and reels whose drum has dried out and gone loose.

Payment and paperwork

When a load is worth paying for, the reply to your request says so before anyone books a truck, and payment terms are agreed in writing at that point. When a load is not worth paying for but is still worth collecting, the pickup is free. When the load is mostly broken wood far from other pickups, we say that too, and suggest the cheapest way to clear it. Companies that need a receipt, a bill of lading or a recycling record for a job file can ask for one in the request.

Bundling with recycling

A load mixing saleable and broken reels still works; the sound ones offset collecting the spent ones.

Questions

Will you take reels with some cable still on them?

Usually, if the cable is noted in the request. Short tails are fine. Reels with a lot of cable left are a different conversation, because the cable has its own value and may belong to someone else.

Do you buy the lagging boards?

No, but we will take them away with the reels for recycling if they are stacked beside them.

Can I drop reels off instead?

Ask in your request. Pickup is the normal arrangement, because most reels are heavy enough that a drop-off means hiring a truck anyway.

Who sells to us

Electrical contractors clearing a finished job, distributors whose yards fill with returned empties, utility crews and their subcontractors, fibre installers, solar builders, warehouse managers who received racking or conveyor cable, and householders who found two spools in a garage they just bought. The question is the same for all of them, and so is the form.