Historically, wirebar was the dominant form of coppertraded, and the price for refined copper wirebar was theâbellwetherâ price for copper. By the middle 1970âs,however, technology had changed to continuous casting anddrawing of wire rod directly from refined cathode, thusbypassing the need to cast wirebar.imilarly, prices for copper scrap arediscounted from the refined value of the recoverable coppercontent to allow for processing costs and profit. Though thediscount from refined must be sufficient to account forprocessing costs, market conditions for each type of scrap willaffect their prices.