Technical "Electric Auto-Lite" Spool of Wire

I went to an auction recently and bought several pallets full of misc(mostly farm stuff and tools). Among the items I hauled home was this spool of wire. I was trying to hurry loading up and at the time I only loaded it because it was a heavy spool of copper wire(50-ish pounds). When I got home and began unloading, I noticed that the spool said "ELECTRIC AUTO-LITE CO". After looking it over a little more, I realized there were a couple pieces of paper stuffed in the center. I fished them out and one was a torn off piece of notebook paper that read "Copper Wire 63 1/2, Spool 10, 53 1/2" and a blank ticket from a wholesaler "Sabayrac Battery Service Houston TX Phone W 61987". I just thought this was very interesting.

 

Is that lacquer insulated wire for electric motor windings and such?

 

I believe that was it's use.

 

Good stuff, when you need it!

 

I'd say that the guys are correct, for rewinding starters or generators. Remembering that in June of 1967 there were about three pages on the auto mechanics apprenticeship test that I took in Seattle about rewinding starters and generators that I didn't mark many answers on as that was something we didn't have in trade school.

I remember that back in the 50's when I was fooling with make your own radio setups there were articles about using that wire and wrapping it around a paper or non conductive tube to make a part for the radios.

 

Yes, it's good for many types of coils in electronics too, and as it looks like fairly heavy wire it will handle a lot of current. Might be easier to find people who want to wind their own coils or transformers than people who intend to rewind car starters or generators (and that's assuming it's the right wire size too, generic coils are more forgiving than motors etc. where the space is limited).

 

I finally weighed the thing and it seems there is still about 38 lbs of wire left on the spool. Based on the sizes of stripper on my auto wiring tool, it appears to be 18 gauge. Does anybody have a ball park idea what this is worth? I doubt I will ever use it.

 

Mr Google shows $3.90/ lb.

Ben

 

My grandfather rewound electric motors for most of his life, I have no idea where that service is offered nowadays.

 

There's still motor shops around if you're in an area that has a fair amount of industrial plants. But nobody is realistically rewinding small motors much anymore as it is usually cheaper to buy new. But big 3-phase motors will still get rebuilt/rewound as those aren't as easy to replace cheaply.

 

Tattoo machine builders would be interested in that too.

 

Sold items on Ebay may give a good clue. With some luck the link sends you straight to sold items in the right category.
https://www.ebay.com/b/Magnet-Enameled-Wire/100180/bn_7649126?rt=nc&mag=1&LH_Sold=1

 

Since this would be very expensive to ship, I didn't really know if eBay would give me an accurate idea for this much weight.

 

That's absolutely a factor, buyers for such a large amount may be rare and they may expect a "discount" for buying a large package at once. Still, it gives some sort of idea what old rolls of such wire can sell for, and if you are prepared to put a bit of work in you could respool it into smaller rolls if the big one doesn't sell for a price you're happy with.

 

I’d take the scrap weight, 150 or so.
Easier than boxing it up and shipping it.

 

I had thought about this too.