get your copper now

i noticed some ppl on here wanting to invest in copper or silver coins simply for the metals melt value. dont know about u.s. but a while back on a wikki page it stated that the canadian mint was pulling coppers from circulation and selling them for the copper price, replacing them with the copper plated steel cents. im no expert but if the objective is to save money wouldnt it make more sense to supply yourself and use the coppers directly in the plating process, or does it absolutely need to have the impurities removed?
also sorry but i cant find that page again...could be buried in text somewhere. and ive noticed that i dont find quite as many old coppers vs steel anymore.

 

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Yep already harvested 40 lbs of that copper. I think I've had enough of sorting cents because it's not nearly as profitable when you can be sorting for silver

 

depends how you see it. silver is worth more, but copper is much easier to find.
1 in 3? compared to 1 in 300?
plus you could be sorting for both?

 

Do people really think it's worth it to save copper pennies? Even as a coin collector I normally wouldn't think twice about it. How much do you think they are worth?

 

i do infact pull out copper coins although i don't go crazy about it.I just get them and put em in a jar when i get em in change i'd say i got about 4lbs of them already..either way if they do infact get more value it won't probably be that soon. Last time i checked copper coins costed about 3-4cents more than its value. That was 4 - 5 months ago not sure if still the same.

 

American small cents containing 95% copper from 1909-1982 are worth currently $.0236863 melt value. Canadian small cents from 1942-1977 are worth currently $.0251950, 1978-1979 are worth $.0251057, 1980-1981 are worth $.0216961 & 1982-1996 are worth $.0193715 melt value. Am I collecting them? YOU BET! I must have already 20 pounds of them. People nowadays are stealing copper so it means it has value!

 

They may be worth that much, but can you actually sell them to anyone for that or is it just theoretical?

 

Who would you sell copper US Pennies to? What companies offer up cash for them?

 

FYI, it is my understanding that it is illegal to melt and/or export US cents.

 

It is illegal to melt US cents right now, but I still pull all the copper ones. The melt value is greater than double the face of the coin, so why wouldn't you ? I mean your investment doubles in real value the second you obtain it and it will never lose it's face value.

 

This is just what I think. I believe that it is a good idea to collect them if you have the time and space. At the moment copper is at a low cost, its used in currency, and is no longer used at the same copper percentage per unit coins around the world. Just as gold and silver were removed from circulated coinage copper will be as well. Due to simple demand reasons for example, copper builds infrastructure, 3rd world countries are growing and demanding the metal, supply issues mining and above ground stockpiles, honestly of which I have no knowledge of the numbers pertaining to them. If it can be used and destroyed and there is only so much on planet earth, it will eventually go up in value do to rarity. The problem is when? Also, where and how to hoard/store lbs of copper cents? I figure I am 24yrs old and live on my own, so I think I have a bit of time to wait on my copper cents and they are stored in tubs with screw on lids. Who would have thought of paying for bottled water? I'm working on buying freshwater lakes in high rainfall locations next.

 

It only doubles in value if you can sell it, and you can't -- unless they change the law.

Personally, I prefer investments where I can make money legally, and inflation means you can (and will) lose money over time @ $0.01 each.

But hey, that's just me, and if you want to hoard copper pennies, I say more power to you!

 

Its just not worth your time to hand sort, i have tried and it just takes too long. You can use a copper penny sorter but they cost $500 and then you would have to save thousands of dollars in penny s to be worth it and that's a big risk.

 

I think that once the mint stops making penny's they will make it legal to melt them. the problem is that they have been talking about that since the 1970s

 

FUN FACT: (answers.com)

How Many pennies weigh a pound?


If the Pennies are from 1983 to Present, then roughly 181 pennies.
If the Pennies are from 1982 and earlier, the roughly 146 pennies.

There can be a couple ways to look at it. We will just consider a normal size US cent.
From 1983 to Present pennies weigh 2.5 grams
1982 and earlier (Modern & Wheat Lincolns) pennies weigh 3.11 grams

The difference is due to the a higher amount of Copper (95%) in earlier pennies. Modern pennies contain very little copper and are about 99% Zinc.


1 pound = 453.59237 grams

Math
453.59/2.5 = 181
453.59/3.1 = 146

 

legalities aside, the mint is selling them so they are worth something. i agree however that hand sorting might not be worth it for the amount of them to be worth it. at first i thought a simple magnet would do it but no one would want those copper plated zinc cents mixed in (non magnetic). but still, when i thought of hoarding them i figured a little time with a magnet over $10000 worth gets you $23000. or even just double. as for selling them, if you have a friend at a scrap metal place, or if you put them at the bottom of a load of copper wire (theyll be mad when they see what they bought) but will re sell them rather then take a loss. coin shops dont buy them? they buy silver for melt. the guy who gets them and melts them could as easily melt these? and if youve ever been to an auto wrecker, you can see the law being broken every day. almost every car i have ever seen there has pennies in it.they all get crushed and melted.

 

Don't you think they'd pay you significantly less for melt, since they need to make a profit? So they're worth 2.5 cents let's say, but they'll pay you 1 cent a piece. Net profit to you - nothing.

 

i believe scrap metal places would pay you over $3 a pound. lets average it out to 150 pennies a pound. so 150 pennies worth $3. $150 worth $300. maybe it will go up who knows?(i based the $3 a pound on a web page stating that scrap copper price is $3.60 a pound.)
http://metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.asp

 

In my area I've been sucessful getting them to the scrapper with net profits.
At the same time there has been no reduction in amount of coppers I'm pulling out. It's been the same ratio for 6 months

 

Care to expand on this a little bit?