copper cents

i have a bunch of copper cents and were wondering if they are even worth keeping. i've heared that they are worth 2.5 cents each and started saving all of them i've found. i was just wonering if anybody here saves them. should i keep them or roll them up and sell them to the bank? i keep any cent that is 1968 or older. they are all 1969-1982.

 

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I am also pondering this question. I am starting to get quite a boatload of 1982 and older.
Looking for ideas too. What temperature does copper melt at?

 

copper melts at 1,083 degrees celcius. lol

 

The melting point is to high for normal household type melting. If you have a blast furnace, that may work. However, unless you have a really large quantity, you'ld be better off just taking to a bank. Many metal recyclers will not even bother with a few pounds of copper coins and don't forget you have to find one, take them there and with the price of gas, you'll probably loose. You may want to first get a book on coins and look for things like 60D/D, 69S Double, 70S small date, 71S double, 72 double, offsets, blanks, missing letters or numbers and so many more. Inappropriate comments deleted

 

As far as scrap yards are concerned, I can say very positively that they are more than happy to take whatever amount of copper you bring them. I work in construction and if at the end of a job I have 5 or 10 pounds of copper wire or pipe left over, I can easily take it to any recycler and dispose of it. I'll get a great deal more for 10 pounds of copper than I would for 200 pounds of steel.

Where the Lincolns are concerned... If you think you have an opportunity in the making, and it doesn't adversly affect you to keep them... keep them. There was a time when people laughed at those who started hoarding silver coins. I'm quite certain they weren't laughing in 1980 when silver hit $50/ounce. Now still, that stupid little 1964 dime is worth almost a dollar just in its metal value. It is traded and sold as such routinely through dealers and on eBay. History will always repeat itself in one form or another. I think in the near term, we're going to see copper prices drop a bit. Demand is going to wane a bit in this country with a lull in the housing market. Long term, I think copper will continue to rise in price. The industrial machines in countries like China are hungry for metals. More countries will begin developing on a larger scale. This will drive prices up.

With the coming demise of the cent and the rising price of copper, people will realize that they can get more for them by recycling than it costs to obtain them. At some point in time, they will become worth three cents a piece, then four... it's inevitable. How many times over face value do they have to become before the idea is no longer laughable to the general public? Who knows, but by that time those who saw it coming will have already cleaned out the supply and will be set to cash in.

Myself, I search rolls anyway. It doesn't hurt me to throw the coppers into a coffee can and put them away when it's full. Will I stand in line at the recycling center to see them melted down? No. I'll let others do that. I'll keep them. Roll them up. One day when the cents are gone from circulation, you'll find my rolls on eBay trading at bullion prices as the 90% silvers do... People collected the wheat cents when they were still less than there metal value. Only worth a cent, but they put them away. Rolls of common date circulated wheats sell for $3.00/roll. But what do I know?

 

No, they won't take them at this time, but eventually, they will learn that it's not illegal and when copper gets valuable enough, they will take them. Maybe not in the next one, two, five years... but in time.

You are right. You will not get 2.5 cents for them... not at this time. If you save them now, it's a speculative investment based on the idea that the price of copper will rise. I don't know exactly what the scrap yards are paying for copper right now. It's been a while since I've taken any in, but it's not much different than selling off silver coins to a dealer or jeweler. They of course pay you less than they are going to get for it, but not so much as to be only 50% of its value. They make their money off of quantity. Let's say copper hits the $7/pound mark... not at all unimaginable. That would effectively double the coins current bullion value to about 4.5 cents per coin. You should be able to expect a recycler to pay (by weight) the equivalent of at least 3 cents per coin... not a bad return. There will be people who will take advantage of this... The very same people who are currently looting construction sites at night and stealing the copper wire and pipe will shift gears and make as many trips to the bank as they can once they realize that they can get it that way. It will happen.

The cent is doomed. Once the Fed stops circulating it and the mints stop producing it, they will be collected as banks ship them back to the Fed and they will slowly disappear from circulation. These common cents that nobody really pays any attention to right now will become harder and harder to find.

So the question is who is going to get them first? Will it be the Fed or will it be the public? It's all a matter of timing in the decision to discontinue the coin vs. what the market might do.

One way or another these coins are going to increase in value.

 

I've been keeping my old copper cents. This isn't necessarily because I think that somehow they will be worth a fortune, but more because I can't spend something that is worth 2.5 cents in return for only 1 cent of merchandise [It's a sickness].

But that said, one thing to keep in mind is that melting a copper or nickel or silver or gold coin probably doesn't represent the highest and best use of the metal, and there may come a time when a common metal coin exchanges for more than melt value in everyday trade, just as jewelry commonly trades for more than melt value.

 

I've been keeping them too. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I figure I get them for one cent, and they will always be worth atleast one cent, so why not?

I figure that some day in the future, it'll be worthwhile for someone like Coinstar to set up a sorting machine to seperate the Lincolns from the Zincolns and the pre-1982 cents will suddenly all disappear from circulation enmass.

 

Whether or not they realize the legality, there will still be the problem that there is no easy way to distinguish between early and late 1982s, and their relatives without individually weighing them, which means that what the recyclers will pay will be based on the "zincolns" metal value.

I usually don't play crystal ball games, but in this case I'll predict that receyclers won't be accepting cents as scrap copper during Thalia's lifetime.

 

For the record, I'm not in favor of melting them, I am just very aware that when the realization strikes the scrap yards and the general public that it's legal, it's going to happen. No, it may not be the best use, but it will be the easiest and fastest way for the opportunist to turn a buck.

 

And the zincolns will make it there too.



If the zinc cents reach a point where their intrinsic value is 2 cents. Scrap yards are willing to pay the equivalent of 1.25 cents per coin whether zinc or copper... $125 for every $100 in cents... it's a guaranteed 25% return on your investment with no waiting. Go to the bank. Go to the scrap yard. Go back to the bank.... I know people in this town who would not hesitate to spend every day going back and forth, if they knew they could. There are 10 banks all within 2 miles of a scrap yard.