Investing In Copper Bullion

Not sure if this has been covered but I was thinking of buying and investing in copper bullion. Not talking about pre 82 Lincoln cents. I searched the internet and it seems that there are plenty of places that will sell bars and rounds in almost any size wanted. Do you think that copper may be a wise investment for the future? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

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A wise investment? No. A speculative investment? Yes. Probabilty? Not likely. You have enough copper available in your household plumbing and electrical, that if it becomes tradeable, you can cannabalize it for extra money. Until then, invest in a more prudent opportunity.

 

I agree with you but let me throw out this scenario. Go back to 1963. All of our coinage, dimes and above are 90% silver and our currency is backed by silver with silver certificates. Our silverware is just that... varying degrees of silver. The electronics available at the time contain silver. Would you have answered the same way if I would have asked about investing in silver?

 

Copper is not a precious metal and is quoted by the pound and not by the ounce like gold and silver. Realistically, you would literally need tonnes of copper to have any amount of real investment. Not really the kind of investment you can pack in a suitcase and run if you have to.

I said this once before in a previous post... If you're worried about an economic collapse, in an apocalyptic future copper pipe will be worth a lot more then copper bullion.

 

ummm...in an apocalyptic future you will be able to salvage all the copper you want from pipes and wiring.

 

GOOD point!!! :too-funny::too-funny::too-funny:

Screw it tomn66, invest in ammo!

 

Most of those places sell 1 ounce copper for $1+. Given that Cu isn't bullion (not measured in troy weights), you're expecting to pay $16+ per pound for "copper bullion" (which, again, is a misnomer). Given that you can buy scrap Cu for $5/pound (which is still 45% above spot or so), why would you EVER "invest" (re: throw away your money) on "copper bullion" pieces?

 

Not saying whether its a good investment or not, but here is a place selling bulk quantities of .999 copper, in 1/2 pound, 1 pound, and kilo bars for around $9 per pound.
http://www.copperbullioncoin.com/categories/Copper-Bullion-Bars/?sort=pricedesc

60 1 pound bars for $500 including shipping ~$8.33/pound
http://www.copperbullioncoin.com/60-one-pound-999-fine-copper-bullion-bars-usa-only/

 

Not this again. Copper isn't practical. Even if copper hits $15 a pound the smelter would reduce your profit substantially. There are a huge amount of inputs to get impure copper to .999. A cent itself can't purchase anything. Bringing up copper coinage as similar to silver coinage is ignorant. During the 60s, you could actually buy something with the coins in your pocket.

 

I think it's unlikely that copper will do well in the future, and even if it does you'll never make money on these things. They're way too overpriced (redundant, I know, I don't care). The only way you could even make a nominal profit is with severe inflation.

I'm not so sure copper cents are a terrible idea, though. It might not work out of course, but I think if they would just repeal that damn melt ban |(like they did for silver after just a few years) they would disappear quickly from circulation, and the ones left would trade like wheats regardless of the copper price. But they probably never will...

Yeah, I totally agree that copper is not the same now as silver was then. Copper isn't a precious metal. I think you would need to actually melt it down and put it into industrial use to realize it's full profit potential, unlike silver which trades as is. Still doesn't mean it's a bad idea, though.

 

Copper is a fantastic investment (or speculation if you prefer)!

However, you need to acquire at zero premium or a discount to spot.

It does require more space than PMs. If you have space this is not an issue.
Also, you need to protect it from the elements (you will get more for bare bright than green and nasty copper).

 

When you produce copper at 60 cents per pound, then you make money!

 

Thank you for your kind words but I am not ignorant nor was the post meant to bring ridicule. All I was implying that at that time silver was a lot more plentiful and its value was much lower to be around where copper is today. Reading some of your previous posts I doubt that you were around in the 60's to see what could be bought. So with all that said....

 

Only pre-1982 pennies make it worth while. Every copper bullion round/bar that I see is so grossly expensive for what it is (plain copper) that the price makes it a joke. The US Nickel would be a better play today. They both still makes silver still the best deal.:hail:

 

I bought 100 copper one oz bullion coins and found a blank one that had no been struck. Is this worth any thing?

 

I don't think copper is a great investment, but I don't think it's as bad as the consensus believes either. Yes it is way overpriced, but that's due to the intensive process it takes to refine copper. If you were to buy it for a reasonable price you should still be able to get your money out of it. I will jump on copper rounds if I can find them between 50-75 cents apiece. Otherwise I just hoard all my pre-82 pennies. Being a purely industrial metal I don't think copper's future is nearly as bright as gold or silver, but it is a small part of my metal diversification plan. Don't forget those moonshiners will be needing copper!

 

Copper is a base metal. It is so common in the earth's crust that, combined with recycling, we will likely never run out of it. Its abundance above and below ground means that current copper coinage bears no similarities to the growth potential of silver coins prior to 1964. Copper is absolutely not an in investment metal.

 

Why can't copper bare similarities? You could compare silver to gold in the same manner as copper to silver. We used to have a 10 billion oz silver stockpile and that's gone now. Back in 64 people might have said the same things about silver before it was a technological metal when it was still good for face value, not viewed as an investment, and not in low supply.

Copper can be used as an antibacterial agent and relieve silver in that regard. Copper is a self lubricating metal that is ideal for moving parts. It is needed in much greater quantity than the precious metals too. I'm not saying it's as good as silver but there is still plenty to like, and really all metals are divisible, durable, portable, fungible, and non-renewable resources unlike fiat currency so they should all react to current monetary policy in similar but varying degrees.

 

Work as electrician like myself. Plenty of copper for a "cheap" price. I got quite a few lbs in the garage. Quite a few..

 

To put this into perspective (which would settle this for rational individuals, but probably not anyone who's considering an investment in copper bullion), here are the percentages of the earth's crust for some metals we consider bullion, and copper:

Silver (Ag): 7.9E-6
Gold (Au): 3.1E-7
Platinum (Pt): 3.7E-7
Copper (Cu): 6.8E-3

That gives us ratios of:

Ag/Au : 25.48
Ag/Pt: 21.35
Cu/Ag: 860.76

So, the relative ratio of Cu/Ag compared to Ag/Au is 33.78. So, to answer the question of whether copper can be to silver what silver was to gold, no.

Silver bugs argue that the "silver-gold ratio" should be around 25x based upon the relative abundance of the two elements in the crust. This explains why a range of 15-125x isn't that unusual.

By contrast, the "copper-silver ratio" should be around 860x based upon the same rationale. This would make a price range of 500x-4000x within reason. Based upon $100 silver (not calling for silver to be $100 per ounce, but rather trying to keep the math simple), that would imply copper priced anywhere from $0.025-$0.20 per troy ounce, assuming equivalent industrial demand and supply. The reason for silver having a lower than expected (or copper having a higher than expected) price is based upon the costs associated with extraction of the metals.

If copper were assumed to have the same extraction costs as silver, we would expect copper to currently have a price in the $0.0055-$0.044 per troy ounce. (To be lazy, I'm going to make a poor assumption that a troy ounce is essentially the same as an avoirdupois ounce and say that a pound of copper would cost the same as 16 troy ounces. I know the assumption is wrong, but it works for the purposes of this argument.) So, we'd expect copper to have a current value of $0.088-$0.704 per pound. Copper currently has a sell price of $3.1725 per pound or more than 4.5x the expected price of copper (based upon the Cu:Ag ratio).

So, even if we argue that copper is to silver (today) what silver was to gold (in the 1960s), we would expect the "bullion" value of copper to drop rather than rise.

There's no way that copper reaches bullion status unless we figure out a way to consume significantly more of the base metal than we do today, and that just won't happen in our lifetime.