cashing in the copper cents

i was gathering up all the loose coins around my room, and trust me, thats alot of coins! anyway, i was gathering up all the copper cents and putting them into a coffee mug and was thinking. i have $12 in copper cents, when i could roll these up and take them to the bank and get $12 to spend on a couple nice franklins that could go up triple of what i paid for them. so i started to roll up my copper cents. of coarse i'm saving all my wheat cents, 1959 and 1960 dates becuase they aren the first couple years of issue of the memorial and i think they will go for a premuim. i'm also saving the S mintmarks becuase the san francisco memorial cents are getting harder and harder to find now that everyones saving them. i'm also saving the low mintage 1961, 1962, 1963, and 1969 cents. and any AU or BU copper coins i find. other than that, they go to the bank this weekend. i doubt that copper cents will go up really in value. its kindof pointless to save them if you can't melt them and get the copper out of them right? and whose going to buy copper cents? i'd rather spend them and get me some nice silver coins that i know will go up in value over the years. just 2 years ago i bought about a dozen silver quarters for $1.25 each. now i can easily sell them for $2.25 or $2.50 each to a collector. if your saving copper cents right now, its time to consider.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

they also banned melting silver coinage years ago as well. now look

 

yup, I've got a jar for all my copper cents, someday they'll do something

 

Nickel coins can be sold at a premium now, so it's only a matter of time until copper coins follow suit.

 

In time, ways will develop to cash in on the copper cents for bullion value even if you can't do it now. So for now I'm saving them.

 

I have been getting rolls of cents and nickels from the banks. I pull out the pre-1982 cents and have been looking for good dates in the nickels.

I have been useing Zip loc one gallon bags makes them easy to store

 

I'm keeping pre-82 cents.

 

American Nickels, or are you refering to Canadian Nickels?

 

If copper goes high enough people will scrap them anyways. Who's going to know that an ingot of copper was once a jar full of cents anyways? People go to extremes to extract metals, and an idle law against melting coins will be little if any deterent. I've seen people risk their lives stripping copper wiring out of live lines still strung on poles, and people make-off with magnesium man-hole covers many times.
Guy~

 

I'm keeping my copper cents for now as well. Anyone know of a quick way of determining whether my 1982's are copper or zinc? I tried the drop-it-on-the-counter method, but all the coins sound the same to me.

 

Canadian nickels. At least the pre-1982 nickels, not the cupro-nickels. I know of a dealer paying $0.10 each right now, but I don't know if there are other outlets to sell them. It is illegal to melt them here in Canada, so I really wonder if these are then resold to hoarders.

 

Weight.

Early copper '82s weigh 3.11g and late zinc '82s weigh 2.5 grams.

If you don't have a scale, just balance 2 cents on the ends of a pencil with another pencil as the fulcrum. For calibration use an '82 and a later coin. If they match, the '82 is zinc, otherwise copper.

 

use a magnet...........oh wait that's to see if a 1943 copper cent is a fake. lol just kidding.

to be absolutely sure you'll need an accurate scale to check them since the weight will be different between the two.

grizz

 

Good tip, thanks Hontonai.

 

go to the supermarket and place on on their deli scales.

 

For copper cents to take off as a bullion investment, someone is going to need to start marketing a simple machine that automatically sorts/verifies copper cents from zinc cents. It is going to need the speed/reliability of a coinstar type change counter, but be cheaper to attract the smaller coin dealers.

 

If you have use of a metal detector the copper and zinc cents give off very different readings.

 

I'm keeping my 1982 cents separate for now when I have the time I will get rid of the copper plated zinc cents unless they are Philly large or small cents

 

Great idea!

 

Its been done....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM9RnDJo9D0