I was at my local Home Depot last weekend and the rep told me that just a few weeks prior, a couple people stole a couple rolls of electrical wire (romex) and the value was over $4,000 because of the cost of the copper in it.
It's probably worth even less if you have to resell wire to recycling businesses of the "no questions about where you got it" variety. Are these wire rolls large enough to contain a thousand pounds of copper?
I was buying a 15ft strand and it was $18.