RUMFORD – Police have no suspects in the first copper theft to be reported to the department.

At 11:47 a.m. Thursday, a Waldo Street resident claimed that buckets containing 400 to 500 pounds of copper and brass had been stolen from his unlocked garage while he was away, acting Chief David Bean said Friday.

As much as 800 pounds may have been hauled away sometime between April and the first week in June, Bean said.

“It was scrap copper and brass from old wiring and internal parts of engines, stuff that took him a long time to collect,” Bean said.

The victim valued the scrap at between $2 and $2.50 a pound, but, as of Tuesday, the price of copper was listed at $3.59 a pound on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“It’s the first instance of copper being stolen in Rumford that I know of that’s been reported, but, if the price has gone up, I suspect that there’s gonna be a lot of that going on,” Bean added.