It's not that much, but thought it would be cool (and time burning) to take a photo and post it here.
I bought a few at the coin show yesterday for $1.50 each. I guess my little copper stash would be the wheat bags sitting in the closet, ticking my wife off every time she sees them.
This is a pretty good reason: http://www.coinflation.com/unitedstates/ Besides, how many hobbies actually reward you with a profit?
)] I can't remember if it was here on CT or another site but a poster had sold a hundred dollars face value of copper cents on EBay and realized an eighty dollar profit. So a profit was claimed. Copper cents might not be grade A but we all know the purity, as is the case with junk silver coins. This makes it easy for people to calculate value.
)] Yes that is cool! Looking at your hobby from a slightly different prospective, assuming the government gets spending under control, resulting in the Fed printing less fiat, then your pile of coppers will be worth - worst case - face value. I don't know what your money in the bank is earning but mine is less than 1/2% - so collecting your copper cents is a smart thing to do IMHO. Also, should the price of copper keeps tanking to the point that the value of the copper in your cent is worth less than a cent, then your pile will still be worth face value. Bottom line, if collecting coppers makes you happy then two thumbs up to you!
Melt for a profit? Bags of junk silver are bought and sold with no melting involved. Same will be true for copper cents.
This is exactly the point. No risk, as they will always be worth at least fave value. And I enjoy keeping them! Which is a bonus. There's also the possibility of finding a rare one but that would really be like hitting the jackpot. The whole idea is to have fun with doing something that ultimately doesn't cost any money and could very possibly make a profit. What's not to like?!
