Haven't seen too many sellers of Copper Bullion. Did stumble across this: http://marketharmony.net/novelty.html Disclaimer: I have no ownership or interest in mentioned firm. This is not an offer to buy or sell bullion. Offer not vaild in some States. Do not operate heavy machinery while speculating on this or any other bullion. If interst in bullion lasts over four hours, insert your own joke here.
Well, sure, you know business' have to make a profit and all that. Really 600%, no, you're just imagining things. (said sarcastically)
so whats the forums view of holding copper, i know you'll need to hold alot of it and it'll be getting heavy.
I have no problem with holding copper. I don't personally do it (takes up too much space). I do, however, have a rather large copper pipe in my house, that if the price of copper gets high enough, i am replacing with PVC. Actually I have several of these pipes (old house).
If you're hoarding copper cents for the copper value, it is rather "centsless" in my opinion. The spot price of copper is for unalloyed (pure) copper. Since pennies are an alloy, you will only get about 20% of the spot price because of the refining costs to extract the copper. Chris
I'm not questioning your facts I was just wondering if you know where I could find information on refining costs. How much does it cost to refine old silver coins?
Google "precious metals refining fees". Some charge no refining fees, they just keep a certain% (10% seems common) of the total silver reclaimed. Same money just different names, but you can calculate the final easier.
Copper is an industrial metal. When the economy improves copper demand/price will rise. I look through a box of cents a week. I pull the pre 1982's and keep them. I have about half of a five gallon bucket filled at the moment. If cents ever hit 10x face I'll sell them. Either to a smelter (if melt ban has been lifted) or by the roll..like silver dimes, quarters and halves are sold now on eBay and at shows. If you think the economy will turn around, I think copper is a good buy right now. However, where do you store 10k worth of copper ingots? That would take up a lot of space!
It's my fault for not being more explicit in my post. When I said it was "centsless" to hoard pennies for their copper value, I was referring to the return you would realize when selling them to a reclamation center. The 20% return I quoted was the result of calling about 100 such centers in the state of Florida, asking them what they would pay and averaging those quotes. I don't know how much it would cost to refine silver, but I seem to recall articles that ran in Coin World and Numismatic News a couple of years ago about refineries in Canada that were melting old coinage to extract silver and nickel to sell to the RCM. I save the pre-82's as well, and if I ever decide to sell, it surely will not be to a reclamation center. Chris
I have noticed on eBay a ton of copper, brass, titanium, columbium, molybdenum, etc. and wondered to myself what purpose this serves in the bullion investment market.
I've wondered the same thing. There's not much info on these metals. Sticking to gold and silver seem to be the most promising bullion investments.
It will come to no surprise to you that there are collectors/enthusiasts for bullion. Whether it is gold, silver, or yes, even copper and other base metals. There are forums dedicated to bank mining for copper cents, and copper bullion in the form of ingots and bars does have its own niche market. As the owner of the company referenced in the original post, I can tell you that copper bullion is not sold based on spot price. In fact, my company's pricing structure has very little association with spot price. Yes, there is a change pricing periodically to reflect the increase and decrease in my raw material. But, the primary cost factors in producing the bullion for which my company specializes, is labor and consumables, such as crucibles and utility expenses. When it is all said and done, my margins are quite tight, and any business owner can tell you that keeping an eye on your margins will make or break you. To those who look at the spot price of copper and cannot fathom the reason for somebody paying well above spot price for copper bullion, then I challenge them to purchase pure copper in small quantities for that spot price. Even my company must pay well over spot price for the amount of raw material which is bought. The spot price that the LME posts is for bulk purchases (think tons, not pounds and ounces) and does not take into consideration delivery costs. What it comes down to is that no buyer of copper bullion in the form of a novelty product can rely on spot price alone to determine the value of their purchase. My advice to those who would like to collect or invest in copper bullion has always been to first determine why copper appeals to you, and then let good judgment and general interest guide their buying decisions.
I go to bullioncopper.com. I get a bulk order discount. Cooper shot is the best value in my opinion. If and when times get tough, I might need to melt something - and it won't be a coin!
I didn't relize how much copper is a pound until I checked the price to see how overpriced the bars were being shown at the beginning of this thread. It's $2.88 a pound at Kitco. I use to scrap copper radiators in the early 1980's and I think it was about $.60-$.70 per pound back then.Didn't take to many rads to buy a case of beer.
Spot price or "market" price for a given metal is often viewed as the value of the metal at any specific point in time, however, this can be the raw form of the metal. Coins and ingots take time and resources in addition to the raw copper itself which must be purchased by mints at market (spot)+ price, thus cost must be recovered and a small profit made in order to stay in business (cover marketing cost, labor, etc.). Copper is also a little more difficult to work with due to the bubbling (or frothing) as well which adds to the time. You also must view copper more as a commodity than a precious metal. Here's an example using another well known commodity oil (light crude)... 1 oil barrel = 42 US gallons = 168 US quarts 1 barrel is approx $80 spot currently which equates to about $0.48 per quart. How much do you usually pay in a store when you are buying a quart of oil? $2, $3, sometimes $4? The scenario here is a little different but the concept is similar. Sorry to be long-winded... Hope this helps.
