You did not build that shop overnight — the partial reels, the new-in-box panels, the van stock, the tools older than your apprentices. Here is what it is actually worth, your options for selling it, and the community that does not retire when you do.
Ask around on any electricians’ forum and you will find the same story: thirty or forty years in the trade, a shop or garage that filled up one reel and one “I might need that” box at a time, and now retirement asking what it all becomes. Some of it is worth real money. Some of it belongs with a young electrician starting out. Almost none of it belongs in a dumpster.
This page is the straight version — what the stock is worth, the honest ways to sell it, the traps to avoid, and where retired electricians actually talk to each other.
Retired or retiring electricians, shop owners winding down, and families settling the estate of an electrician — a lifetime of wire, devices, panels, and tools in one place.
Phone photos of the reels, the shelves, and any nameplates or box labels. You do not need to sort, count, or inventory anything first.
After decades in the trade, the same categories show up again and again. Each one has a different kind of value.
The heart of it: partial reels and full spools of THHN/THWN, Romex/NM-B, MC cable, tray cable, and feeder sizes. New full reels are the most valuable; partial spools still carry strong value; even cutoffs add up. Keep the labels and boxes — identification protects value.
Breakers, load centers, disconnects, and devices still in factory boxes — Square D, Siemens, Eaton, and similar. New-old-stock in sealed boxes is worth far more than loose used material, so do not open what is already sealed.
Conduit benders, fish tapes, knockout sets, meters, threading machines — the kit that took a career to assemble. Quality hand tools hold value for decades and young electricians are always hunting them.
The bins of connectors, fittings, plates, and “just in case” material every working electrician carried. Individually small, collectively worth real money — and exactly the kind of lot a single buyer takes whole.
New-in-box fixtures, ballasts, LED retrofits, and specialty lighting bought for jobs that changed scope. Boxed and unused is the key phrase — it is what separates resale value from scrap value.
Every shop has one. Be honest about which pile is treasure and which is scrap — and know that scrap copper still pays. Nothing in that pile is worth zero.
Retired tradesmen argue about this constantly. Here is how the options actually stack up.
Listing on eBay and trade forums — Mike Holt’s forum even has a Members Trading Post for exactly this — usually gets the highest total return. It also takes months of photographing, listing, packing, and shipping. Best if you enjoy the process and have the time.
Local industrial auctioneers will come to the shop, tag everything into lots, run the bidding online, and handle pickup — typically for around 15% commission. You need enough volume to make it worth their trip, and results are a crapshoot: everything goes, but prices vary wildly.
One call, one walkthrough, one offer for everything — the wire, the devices, the tools, the van stock. Less than piecemeal selling, more than a cleanout crew, and done in days instead of months. This is what we do: send photos, get an offer, and the shop is empty.
Young electricians starting out need exactly what you are tripping over. Selling the working kit cheap — or gifting it — to an apprentice or a new shop keeps a career’s worth of tools in the trade. Many retired electricians say this was the most satisfying option of all.
Working tradesmen who have been through this give the same advice: talk to your tax advisor before you sell. How you time and structure the sale of a shop’s worth of assets changes what you keep after the tax man is paid. A multi-year wind-down can beat a fire sale.
Beware the “we’ll clean out your garage for free” offer. Free cleanout means they keep everything they haul — including the copper that pays. If someone wants your shop badly enough to haul it free, it is worth getting a second offer first.
You already know copper is money. What surprises most retiring electricians is how much the form matters. Our copper wire grades guide covers this in depth; the short version:
A sealed, labeled full reel of THHN is resale material — another contractor can pull it onto a job tomorrow. That is a different market, and a different value, than scrap.
The old instinct is to strip insulation for bright copper. For clean, identifiable wire, insulated often sells better as-is to the right buyer — stripping costs you hours for pennies. Photograph it first and ask.
Gauge, insulation type, footage markings on the reel — every label you preserve is value you keep. Unidentified wire gets priced as mystery; labeled wire gets priced as what it is.
Ask any retired electrician where the trade talk happens now and they will point you to the same places:
A working electrician of 29 years started a dedicated thread for retired electricians on the Mike Holt forum — to compare notes on winding down, selling off stock, and helping the folks still in the trade. It is exactly the room you are looking for.
One of the largest electrician communities on Facebook — hundreds of thousands of members trading photos, war stories, and advice. Retirement announcements and shop-sale posts are a regular feature, and the comments are pure trade culture.
The old network still works. Counter staff know every shop opening and closing in the county, and a word there reaches working electricians faster than any listing site.
Straight answers for the situation you are actually in.
Yes — that is the core of what we do. The wire, the new-in-box devices, the panels, the tools, the van stock: one walkthrough, one offer, one pickup conversation. You do not need to split it across five different buyers.
No. Photograph the reels, the shelves, and the boxes as they sit. Sorting is our problem after the offer, not your problem before it.
We look at the whole shop. Quality trade tools — benders, meters, knockout sets, threading machines — have a real resale market, and we factor them into the offer.
Yes, and take your time — there is no rush on our end. Families in this situation usually send phone photos of each wall of the garage or shop, and we work from there. You do not need to know what any of it is.
Sometimes significantly. New-in-box current-production breakers and load centers from major brands hold strong value; obsolete or heavily used gear is worth less but rarely worthless. A photo of the box labels tells the story.
Send photos through our contact form or call 312-880-8174. For qualifying material, we discuss a direct purchase offer and the next steps.
A reel with its label, a breaker in its box, a panel with its nameplate — identified material is priced as what it is, not as mystery metal. That principle is the whole business: we buy industrial surplus, copper wire, and electrical equipment from the people who actually used it, and we pay for what it really is. If you would rather sell the lot whole than spend six months on listings, start with photos.
Photograph the reels, shelves, and boxes as they sit — nameplates and labels where visible — then send them through the contact form.
We review what the material is, its condition and quantity, and how it grades for resale versus recovery.
For qualifying material, we discuss a direct purchase offer and the next steps.