Why do people re-sell copper pennies for so much even though it is illegal to melt them down for their copper?
I think the hope is that someday the US will demonetize the penny, making it legal to melt them down.
They sell them for so much because other people will pay that much money. Now, if you want to know why people _buy_ them when it's illegal to melt them down... I guess they're hoping the law will be changed one day and they can make a big profit. (Though copper Lincolns are only 95% copper, much less than the nearly pure metal used in industry, so any profit is likely to be eaten up by the cost of refining to the proper purity.)
I'm amazed at the amount of people who never see a connection between "market news," including YouTube videos, and sales. News feeds sales and vice versa, that is why some people argue that watching the news actually makes a person less informed. News and advertising have almost completely merged.
Exactly. The question isn't why do people sell them for that much, but why can they sell them for that much. I'm guessing most buyers don't really understand how spot copper prices relate to coins that (a) aren't pure copper and (b) aren't legal to melt, or don't mind sitting on many pounds of coins for a long time to make a few dollars.
Saving copper cents with the idea of melting them down doesn't make a whole lot of sense, when you can get copper pipes at Home Depot, swap meets, yard sales for less.
This. People believe and repeat everything they see on the Internet. As anecdote, some years ago when I was living in Paraguay people use to steal landline telephone wire to sell as copper. One day you wake up and your line was dead. It was a real problem. Wire is 99.9% copper though.
Now that’s dumb!!! I wired a lot houses and commercial building and so many break in and it makes you feel sick to your stomach to walk in on a job hoping to complete it and get inspections to find out someone cut out all of your hard work for maybe a $100. Edit: copper cents... I hoard them also. Not going to lie...
It's not illegal to melt US cents if you can classify your product as "art". Copies of classic Oriental Gongs and wall hangings' etc. sell for many times the cost in cents. Foundry and proper mold, and sell on Etsy
Also, people could be gambling the cost of a few rolls hoping for that minor variety or NAV MD so they can prey on the uninformed and try to sell it on ETsy, Ebay etc.
You're better off scrapping the copper in old circuit boards, which is usually pure copper...which brings up something else...some try to recycle the gold that is used in electronics, such as in connectors, solder pads, plated through-holes, etc. But what most people don't know is that the gold is alloyed with nickel to facilitate soldering, and is not pure gold, and besides that, the plating isn't very thick...not worth the trouble IMHO...just my two cents worth (which is why I have a 2-cent coin as my avatar!!!)
Most of the gold-extraction "tutorials" I've seen digest everything, and then separate out the gold. Not something I'm tempted to try myself. I have experience with the acids involved, and want no parts of them in large quantities, never mind trying to dispose of the waste.
Something else worth mentioning. You've heard of the product called Nic-A-Date that's used to get dates off of dateless Buffalo nickels? It's ferric chloride, the same acid used to etch the copper off circuit boards when they are made. The chemical dissolves the copper off the Buffalo nickel and leaves the nickel behind. The tip here is that it's cheaper to get it at an electronics supply store than in a coin shop.
All true, except that it etches both copper and nickel away. It brings up details on "nickels" (cupronickel coins) because striking work-hardens the metal that gets forced into die recesses, and that makes it more resistant to chemical attack. (At least that's the story I've gotten from people who know more about metallurgy than I do.) Nic-A-Date would presumably work fine to restore dates on clad coins, too, if they ever circulated enough to lose their dates. The alloy in the outer clad layers is the same as the alloy in nickels.