Copper Penny Sorter

I am considering the idea of hoarding pre-1982 copper pennies. If I am going to commit to this, I am going to be accumulating tons of pennies. I have been searching through rolls here and there by hand and it is getting rough. I don't want to purchase a Ryedale sorter but would prefer to make one on my own. Does anybody here any sort of plans or instructions to building any such device that separates the copper pennies from the zinc pennies? Any recommendations on coin comparitors and where to purchase them?

Any information, stories, links, comments are greatly appreciated.

 

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I have seen many many plans on the net. Try google " coin sorter plans" or something like that.

I have a friend in MI that bought a Ryedale, he loves it.

 

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/03/18/hoarding_pennies/

Woke up one morning to this story.

 

wow - good luck

i think to get a ton of copper pennies to search thru - you would have to get 16,000 dollars of pennies (9-10 tons) at approx 20% pre 82s rate and then that would be 3100 dollars sitting & waiting for the mint to lift the melting ban.

 

Nice story, wonder how long before his garage is relieved of said coins. Certainly would not be hard to find them. Only 7 people in Michigan with that name.


Who was it that coined..HAHA the phrase.. HERES YOUR SIGN.....:whistle:

 

I;ve thought about making a machine. THe best I could think of was a track that the cents roll down very fast. And on the track have a trap door that is weak enough to to let the heavier cents through adn strog enough to let the light cents go over it. There are industrial weight sorters ( for seeing if cerial boxes contain enough cerial ect.) , but they're not cheap.

 

Bill Engvall.

 

It would take an awful lot of pennies to really make any money, and even then, it's still at roughly 2x face, and that's not counting the fact that you STILL have to melt the alloy to get the copper out. Wouldn't it be better to invest in pure nickel bullion? Canadian nickels (pre-1982) were 99.9% nickel and are currently worth almost 3x face, plus they'll take up much less space for your money.

 

I did, this thread was the very first link returned from Google. LOL

 

You can build one for less then $45.

All you need is a working coin comparitor ($20-$30 on eBay) and a 12V DC power supply.

Done.

 

I would agree, but not much better.

Let use the amount of $500.00 and calculate the value of both us cent vs canada nickel. At $500.00 in us cents this would add up to 325.6779 lb of copper and 17.1409 lb of zinc for $500.00 face value and has a melt value of $1194.63. A roll of US cents at 3.6143 lb of copper and 1.0229 lb of zinc the exact value is $1.1946310175931.
If you take the same amout of Canada Nickels (1955-1981) $500.00 at todays prices at melt which equal $0.1286944 metal value then 10,000 nickels at $0.1286944 = $1286.944 USD.
So it would be better to collect Canada nickels over us cents if you were going to melt them down.

I only have one question. Have the US lifted the ban on melting down the cent?

 

Plus theirs a difference between making a law and enforcing it.

 

What you mean that if we have a law that someone would actually, in real life, for real not follow that law?
Odd. Of course as you may well know we also have laws against murder, rape, robbery, etc and eveyone knows how well that works. We in the Chicago area have some good news though. Our murder rate is way down from the 700 area to less than 600/year. However, auto thefts are still about 50,000/year.
Oh melting cents. Not that I know them personally of course, but some certain electricians are having Copper cables and wire melted down along with bags of cents. IN this area there are so many metal recylers I sometimes wonder if there are more of them than food stores.

 

Howdy,

Some of you are missing the point. It doesn't matter about the ban on melting cents. Feh, they've never been able to enforce this sort of thing before so why now? Besides, it's not that we will actually have to melt cents ourselves to make a profit.

If the price of copper continues to climb over time, there will be 1000's of dealers willing to buy our copper cents at some premium. Of course there will be some vigorish, so you're not going to get 'melt price', but you'll get something.

It'll be similar to them buying wheaties now. They'll pay so much a roll of 'old pennies pre-1982'.

How will they get them melted down? Who cares. Just be assured that they'll figure out a way.

rono

 

Except, *I* can't melt them down, as it is illegal up here. You can melt them, though, and it seems that is happening already to some degree. I just save them as I come across them, but I'm not going to hoard them. I've got nowhere to put that many!

 

And just think what the rate would be if there is no laws. Laws are just like locks, they are here to keep the honest people honest!

 

i really like this. i thought about the same thing. thanks for the laugh!!

 

If you do not have the money to buy a $500.00 sorter, I bought a Coinsniper copper sorter machine from www.bullionrush.com It works just as good as a high end machine.