The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-10-11
MILLIONS MADE IN JUNK
OLD METAL PRICES HIGH
WASTE MATERIAL OF ALL KINDS
NOW HAS COMMERCIAL
VALUE.
New York SUM-

dealer Ill NdOtC iiAeSiiaAct o'hNt "Aei
the change of name has come prosper
NV such as he never knew before. Be-
fore the war the gross business trans
acted by the junk dealers of America
probably averaged about the $780,
600 900 mark Last year at the an
mai convention of the waste material
dealers held in New York it was an
nounced that the combined business
of the junk-beg pardon, waste mat
erial-dealers of America was more
than ST. 100000 year.
Old rags, bones, old iron and scrap
metals waste paper and other like
materials have become important
commodities. America was suddenly
awakened to the fact that it couldn't
get iron and other metals out of the
earth fast enough to meet the de-
mands of hungry Europe, and there
followed a mad race among iunkmen
old metals lying about the country in
Junk heaps. Prices went skyward, and
before the first year of the war was
over scrapped metals and other waste
materials were 800 and 500 per cent
higher and We're still climbing.
Fortune for Junk Pile.
An Iowa junkman, Tom Robinson
whose rickety wagon and ancient
horse were a familiar sight in many
small towns in the central part of
the state, found it worse than useless
to attempt to market the junk he col
lected on his weekly trips and he de-
termined to store 1t away and wait
for a rise in the market. Accordingly
he rented three acre field near his
home and invested every cent he could
spare in junk At the time the war
began he had collected pile of junk
more than forty feet high. During
the first year of the war he sold the
entire collection for more than $780,
900. One of his first acts thereafter
was to discard his battered wagon and
horse for a seven passenger touring
car.
: a year ago st. Louis reported that
its junk business had passed the $780,
100000 mark and was still growing
New York with it's vast facilities for
collecting and marketing waste mate
rails was doing an annual business
several times as great. One st. Louis
concern increased it's annual business
from 100000 to more than $1,000,000
shortly after the war opened. Another
large middleS western concern en-
rloys more than 1000 men and moves
an average of twenty carloads of junk
day.
Sale Of Waste Paper.
The business of buying and selling
waste paper, once a drug op the mar
ket, averages about 100000 a month
for every million of population. Sec
ond hand book dealers have some
times found it profitable to tear the
covers off books and sell them for
waste paper School children have
made thousands Of dollars by collect
ing and selling waste paper, the pup
lis of the grade schools of Des Moines,
Iowa, having sold $4,000 worth of waste
paper collected during one week.
When scrap iron began it's dizzy
climb it nestled around the 81 mark,
but within year it was selling at $40
and $12 ton. with an unlimited de-
mand Old "copper" brass. aluminium.
zinc, electrotype and other metals
jumped skyward, factories utilizing
Ia hia tn pQt
enough to meet the demand. The
great railroads engaged in the junk
business themselves on tremendous
scale. In one month 10000 tons of old
iron was dumped into the st. Louis
iron market by railroads entering that
city,
Buy Old Motor Cars.
Not the least interesting side of the
junk or waste material business mas
been the recent addition of new side
line, that Of buying and scrapping old
motor cars. The enormous production
of motor cars in the last ten years. mas
Of course been attended by deprecla-
ton of the usefulness of hundreds OF
thousands of old cars. The market for
these old cars has grown until it is
now keeping pace with the growth OF
the motor industry. There are In va
rlous parts of the United States large
concerns which specialize in the buy
ing and wrecking of old cars. me
business is worth many millions OF
dollars a year.
In every old car there are parts IN
as good a condition apparently as the
day the cars were turned out at the
factory. These are rescued by ex-
perts, sorted and placed in bins, where
they are sold as repair parts. The
iron and steel. aluminium and othef
metals entering into the makeup or a
car are carefully extracted and SOLD 10
plants engaged in the reduction OF
junk for commercial purposes ana
eventually converted into war ma
terals.
Railroads and Tin Cans.
There is practically no limit to the
industry of the waste material dealer
He will buy and sell anything IRON
old railroads to tin cans; in fact sew
eral decrepit railroads have been pur-
nhacad hv inpk doa1orc and sold. roll