High price of 600 amp circuit breakers?

I actually have a good reputation, 300+ 100% positive ebay feedback.
And it is not because I never screw up. I do screw up from time to time, but I make it right afterwards.
I will be elated if, say, I get $150 apiece. That would be many times over what I paid for them. I do hope to get $180-200 apiece, which is in line with recent ebay sales.
If I sell these breakers separately, I can give buyers a 5 day right of return, they pay shipping. If I sell to dealers, all in one lot, I would give them no warranty. They are dealers and know what they are doing.
i

I often encountered small contacts that were silver/cadmium. I have no clue why the cadmium, but it was always a surprise to find the yield lower than expected, thanks to the cad content. Interestingly, cad and silver are quite similar in appearance, so there is no outward sign of the alloy. That's very unlike the tungsten type, which often have a waffle pattern on the back side, and are considerably heavier than the other alloy types.
Harold

Tungsten feels very strangely heavy when I hold it. I have a pack of 10 3/16" electrodes, the little box weighs about a pound (did not weigh it).
i

| I came into possession of a few used 400-600A circuit breakers. Each | is the size of a milk jug. While researching prices on them and such | (they sell for $150-200 on ebay), I learned that some cost many | thousands of dollars new. I saw numbers from $2,500 and higher. | | I am curious just what makes them so expensive. Do they have any | precious materials inside? Or what? | | i
There's a new kind out there now, which is wiping out the demand for the older style. All amperages of the same body size of breaker are all the same breaker, with a small module plugged in to control the trip point. Folks love the low parts count. I've never priced them, but I was impressed when I first saw 'em. In that range, there's so few people that need them the economy of scale keeps the price up, but I imagine that the used prices are really good. Industrial customers usually don't tend to buy stuff like that used.

The new ones are the one with a little thing in the middle with tyhe amp number, that is separate from the case, right? Like a little depressed button.
They could easily sell for $150-200, it seems, at least a half of wat I have if not more. Gotta look at them more closely.
i

Oh, yeah! Specific gravity, as I recall, is something like 18-19. Not too many elements are heavier. Gold (19.3) , Platinum (21.37), Iridium (22.42). Silver (10.4+) languishes down with lead, about 11.
Harold

You should look at this site. Talk about high powered breakers, and this one failed. The movie is totally awesome.
Click on the MPEG video movie titled "NEW MPEG of a 500 kV disconnect switch, one phase opens hot!"

Apparently breaker contacts have a tough job to do. They have to resist oxidation to some large degree, but there is always some surface oxide present to interfere with the making of the contact when the breaker closes. The cadmium, having a relatively high vapor pressure, does vaporize to some degree every time the contact opens, and leaves a surface that is favorable to re-closing the breaker.
The man I knew was a technician who was responsible for formulating different kinds of sintered contacts out of different materials, to research the idea of getting the Cad out of the product. At the time GTE was well aware that it was not the best material to have in their products, and wanted to be one step ahead of any regulation about the issue.
I think by the time I met him (this was about '81 or so) they had already decided on tungsten as a likely replacement. I always though it was very ironic that this man was toiling away quietly doing work that would benefit the public, and the environment as well, greatly. Yet each night he would bring home two one-gallon jugs of water from the lab (we received our water from the metropolitian district commission) because his own public water supply for his town (woburn, mass) had been badly polluted by W. R. Grace, and he did not want to drink or cook with that water.
As a side note, the guy who first figured out what was going on was indeed another GTE Labs employee, who ran a sample of his tap water through a Mass Spec Gas Cromatograph anaysis machine (which was what he did there at the labs) just as a lark. "Hmm, let's see what's in this, just for fun."
Holy Sh%t.
Lots of chlorinated solvents, like TCE and Benzine.
And then the shouting began.
Jim

According to DeepDiver : I've seen those. Ouch!

According to Ignoramus5533 : Yes, but does that feedback say you're a reliable supplier of useable/working high amp breakers? _That's_ what's meant by "good reputation" in this context. eBay reputation is somewhat irrelevant in this context.

Well, it says that I do not sell bad things by claiming that they are good things.
i

Industrial customer do purchase used, sometimes that is the only place they will get what they need. There is a huge difference in large frame breakers. Most are rebuildable. There are lots of aftermarket companies that offer springs and contact kits for a lot of the popular old breakers. As long as you have the personnel and equipment to do the testing after the rebuild there is nothing wrong with a 15 year old breaker that is tested after a rebuild. Most larger cities have several companies that specialize in just this function. I just sold a bunch of GE Magnablasts and cells to a factory in the east. Each breaker was produced circa 1977. The are of the 15kv varity and 1200-1600 amp frame. Each breaker weights in at a svelte 2350 pounds. They wanted to do an expansion and did not want to change breaker types. They will refurbish these and add new trip units. Installation of the cells will be over their Christmas shutdown. Sure glad it is outside my service area.
Higher amperage breakers especially the medium voltage types can have lead times of 20 plus weeks.
We will also be removing ~22 GE 2000kva transformers soon. 12.47kv to 480 or 208 3 phase 4 wire. Can I put you down for a few? Got 3 utility transformers coming up. 69kv to 12.47kv any one interested? Oil samples were taken, I do not have the results yet.

Yeppers, that stuff has a cottage industry around it. Better to pay $1000 to a rebuilder, than to pay $6,000 for a new one with a MSRP of $11,000.
If I can sell mine to a rebuilder for $200, I will be happy as a clam.
i

According to Ignoramus21085 : It means you're basically honest, but it doesn't mean that you can reliably assess the condition of these breakers. You can't test them.
Best you can say is "good/clean condition, contacts apparently good, manual actuator works".
Industrial users of such equipment will not buy such gear. Even a guarantee is not going to help, because they can't risk it failing and taking something very expensive with it. Hell, for the most part, it'll cost them more to install it than you could sell it for.
Rebuilders are your best bet, and they won't pay much.

Yep. That's what I will do. I will say something like "Demolition takeout from a working system. Clean. Checks out with an ohmmeter, turns on and off with manual switch". Or something like that.
Well, what would they pay, in your opinion?
i

Interesting. Reminds me of a product I used to make for Univac, that required cadmium plating with an iridite finish. Zinc was substituted for the cad almost immediately. This was back in the 70's, so the movement away from cadmium use was already in motion. Almost everything that got plated was done with cad those days----at least in the missile facility. I became well acquainted with its use and appearance.
Harold

Please check the mounts before mounting on a grounded surface. Some of these breakers have to be put on glastic so the terminals will not arc.

The bigger the breaker the less of a muliplyer there is. All depends on the volume your doing with the supplier.
What part of the country are you in? Maybe I can give you some numbers or names that will help in the money mission. You will need to be VERY specific with these folks. Model, manufacture, frame size, trip unit/size, mounting, voltage, poles just to get started. Detailed pictures help as well.

Agreed.
I am in Northern Illinois. I am going to unload and clean these breakers and will ptake photos. Some are 600A, some are 400A, some are motor breakers, etc.
i