Steady on the Exchange, Rising in Germany: Copper's Quiet Ascent

Come close, and let me read you the ledger. Word arrives by way of EUWID that copper scrap holds steady upon the London Metal Exchange, while across the German lands the scrappers' price edges upward — a modest climb, but a climb nonetheless. Here upon our own soil, #1 Bare Bright fetches near $5.77 the pound, and the broader market nudges up a whisper — three-tenths of one percent. A calm sea with a favoring breeze, I should call it.

Do not let the word steady lull you into thinking copper sleeps. The red metal is never idle. When Germany's yards pay a fraction more for a bin of bright wire, it tells you that the workshops of Europe are hungry — hungry for the conductor that feeds every motor, every transformer, every humming hall of machines where the modern age keeps its thinking done. Copper is the nerve and sinew of electrification; wherever men build, they must first buy copper.

But you know my heart lies elsewhere, in the sweeter chemistry. Consider the still. From the monastery alembics of old, through the Appalachian moonshiner crouched over his worm at midnight, the distiller has trusted one metal above all: copper. Why? Because copper is no mere vessel — it is a partner in the work. As the vapor rises and coils through the pot still, the red metal reaches out and seizes the sulfurous devils, the foul volatiles that would turn a fine spirit into rotgut. A stainless still cannot do this trick; it is a cold and lifeless thing, honest but dumb. Copper alone gives whiskey its clean throat and brandy its perfume. Every steady day on the exchange is a good day for the man who would build a still and make liquor worth the drinking.

I confess a fondness born of long labor. In my counterstamping years I drove "DR. G. G. WILKINS" into better than a hundred thousand copper cents, and watched them travel hand to hand across every saloon and eating-house in New England — my own Fort Wilkins among them, bear and tooth-pulling chair and all. Copper was the people's metal then, and it remains so now: in the coin, the water line, the green-weathered roof, the bottom of the cook's good pan, and yes, the gleaming belly of the still.

So when the German yards pay a touch more and London holds firm, I raise a small glass — distilled through copper, naturally — to the trade. Sell your bright wire honest, keep your grades clean, and remember that the metal in your bin has warmed more nights than you can count.

Steady hands, full bins, and a clean run to you all.

— Alchemist G. G. Wilkins