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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3994114, member: 27832&quot;][USER=81991]@alurid[/USER] is right that the value of copper in a pre-1982 cent is 1.8 cents, <i>if you had that copper already purified</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>[USER=24633]@cpm9ball[/USER] is right that you can&#039;t just sell cents to a refiner and get that much money. They pay less for impure copper, and cents are impure copper. Besides, it&#039;s currently <i>illegal</i> to melt cents or nickels (except war nickels). This is a law that was passed when copper prices spiked (back around 2006?); as far as I know, it hasn&#039;t been repealed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Having said that, <b>you <i>can</i> get close to &quot;melt value&quot; if you sell a large lot of copper cents on eBay</b>. There are lots of people who think of copper cents in terms of melt value; whether they don&#039;t know about the costs and caveats, or don&#039;t care, there are enough of them to form a market.</p><p><br /></p><p>You may get even more if you play up the &quot;unsearched&quot; and &quot;old accumulation&quot; aspects of the hoard. If they were saved from circulation, they surely <i>have</i> been searched multiple times along the way, but that&#039;s not what &quot;unsearched&quot; means on eBay these days.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you do decide to go the eBay route, Priority Mail Flat Rate shipping is your friend. You can get many, many pounds of cents into a medium flat-rate box that will ship for well under $20. For your own time and sanity, and to minimize shipping costs, sell them as a few large lots rather than many smaller ones.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m facing a similar situation myself, with a hoard a friend inherited from her father. It&#039;s not as large as yours, and it&#039;s got several dozen <i>rolls</i> of cents, mostly from the 1960s. I searched a few of the rolls, and decided it was more work than fun. I expect I&#039;ll list the lot of them in a single auction, explaining what I found in the ones I did check, and let them bring what they bring.</p><p><br /></p><p>In your case, I&#039;d at least go through, put the cents into bags, and set the nickels and dimes aside for further attention. If the dimes are all 1965 or later (non-silver), spend them, unless some of the oldest ones are really nice. Same for nickels, probably.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dumping the lot into a CoinStar may be the fastest route, but I couldn&#039;t bring myself to accept 11% <i>below face value</i> for a lot like this. I&#039;d spend the rest of my days feeding them into self-checkout stations first.</p><p><br /></p><p>Good luck with whatever you decide, and welcome to CoinTalk![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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