Do you guys know if anyplace melts down the copper out of pennies and pays out? I have a lot of copper pennies that I have found metal detecting and was curious if this was possible. Thanks, Jim
I don't know if they do or not but checking to be sure they are getting coppers and not zincs might be something they wouldn't want to mess with?
High as it is, the price of copper isn't high enough to make melting cents profitable, especially when you factor in the time that would have to be spent sorting the '82s into two piles and putting the earlier and later ones into those piles. When (and if) it does go high enough, dealers will start paying a small discount to melt, just as they do now for junk silver and gold.
It's going to take significant inflation in copper prices before you will ever even earn as much as minimum wage for the time you spend accumulating copper cents and delivering them to someone who will pay above face value.
each 82 and earlier penny is worth in metal value a hair over 2 cents a piece. of course nickels are worth a hair over 6 cents a piece since the price of nickel is quite high and the price of copper helps too. even the 82 and later zinc pennies are almost worth their face value. i''ve started collecting copper pennies and i find its super easy, buy as many hand rolled pennies rolls at the bank and then sort em out. so far i've gotten some wheats and found a 57 canadian, i think the old canadian pennies are pure copper and this one is in nice condition. also canadian nickels prior to 82 (or 81 i forget) are pure nickel. so if you want to collect "worthless" pocket change for metal value pennies and nickels are the way to go. i get rolls, sort out the copper roll up the zincs and take back in for more rolls. for some reason i enjoy doing it. its like a treasure hunt for me. copper may never be the new silver but all metals prices have gone up and will probably continue to do so. you could check out www.hoarding copper.com i'm a member there. it was mainly about pennies and then expanded into nickels and then other subjects like gold and silver and scrap metals.
