Future Price of Brass

[Buffalobob]

My general understanding is that the price of raw metal - copper has tripled recently. In a relatively simple manufacturing process such a making cartridge cases, I would guess (I am not a industrial engineer) that the cost of the raw material is 20-30% of end cost. There is not enough profit margin in a brass cases to absorb a tripling of raw material cost.

I do not know the stockpile of raw copper that is on hand nor the stockpile of the correct brass alloy (each brass manufacturer obviously uses a differrent alloy). However electrical contractors and plumbers are seeing higher costs already.

In other word there is a lot of stuff I don't know, but the end guess is that the cost of a peice of newly made brass is going to be 50% higher than what you could have gotten a month ago. Transportation costs are only a small portion of the final price but you will also seee maybe a 1-2% cost increase from that.

If you are sitting around hoping that high quality copper based widgets are going to get cheaper you must also own water front property in Fla and a bridge in Brooklyn.

You can do as you please, I am no manufacturing expert nor any stock market analyst but if you might want to Google the cost of copper and the future forecasts and then start picking up pennies on the sidewalk and buy now not later.


As a note this post was developed for a different thread and then I decided it was a little too insulting so I am posting it independently of any other thread in this section. For those of you who know more about this kind of stuff than me please fell free to correct me and post "correct" and /or "first hand information".

[overbore]

B-Bob, Let us put your accurate information into perspective. The US mint is now making Buffalo coins out of 24 kt gold "at a sightly increased" price over the original nickel. Our paper dollar volume is causing its value to decrease in relation to the Euro and commodoties. Blink now at brass costs but wait until the Iran mess shuts or endangers the Straits of Hormuz! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] Overbore