Copper Stacking, Anyone?

I've seen the copper rounds at my LCS. They look pretty fun and inexpensive.

Think I will pick some up from them.

 

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Advanced medical technology requires copper. Imaging tools, X-rays, CT Scans and MRIs are just some of the medical technologies that utilize copper. Virtually all electronics today contain copper, including smartphones and televisions. Computers often make use of copper plates as effective heatsinks. I invest in copper on occasion. But I don't buy rounds, ingots or hoard bags of coinage. I go to the local scrap yard and buy bright wire & pipe (#2 grade) when the market hits a low spot & sell it back later when it peaks. Really, if you think about it, recycling is a safe investment.
ck. out this site: https://www.scrapmetaljunkie.com/843/invest-in-physical-copper-bullion-scrap-copper

 

I've been doing some Spring cleaning and came across another item I don't recall buying. I must have because there's a receipt with my name on it ($129 + $12 S&H).

This is a box for forty (40) rolls of circulated (G-XF) cents (mostly G-VG)...all dated 1935-D. These may be worth something in another 50 years or so...unless I've managed to corner the market on 1935-D cents.

 

Well, "safe" in the sense that copper will always be useful, but I don't know what the buy-sell spread is like or how it will change.

But the mass and volume per dollar for copper... ugh. The price of copper is near its all-time high today, and you still need over four hundred POUNDS of the stuff to buy that canonical nice suit/toga/whatever that an ounce of gold will purchase.

To support a retirement, or a family's post-apocalyptic existence, you might want a million bucks. In dollars or crypto, it's a few bits in a storage device; essentially zero mass and volume. In gold, it's a cube about four inches on a side, weighing a bit less than 45 pounds (but, of course, you'd have stacks of coins or bars instead). In silver, it's four cubic feet, weighing about a ton and a quarter; as coins, rounds or bars, think of it filling part of a closet, and requiring lots of trips up and down the stairs if you want to move it.

In copper, it's almost 500 cubic feet, weighing over 100 tons. If you have it as wire or pipe, it occupies a lot more volume than that. On the positive side, anyone wanting to steal it all needs lots of time and equipment; on the down side, if you don't want any of it stolen, it's a lot harder to hide or secure.

I have "invested" in stuff that has an even worse volume-to-value ratio. But I looked at it more as entertainment, seeing how cheaply I could get (say) old test equipment at the local university surplus store and then how much I could get for it on eBay. That was fun, and made me some money -- but I lost interest before I sold all the equipment, so now that's more of my garage occupied with large, bulky dust collectors. (And unlike gold or silver or copper, test equipment really doesn't hold its value over time.)

 

Stack copper tubing it pays better...LOL

 

But it takes up more space, because it's hollow inside!

 

I was in the Air Conditioning business for over 30 years, and scrap copper always
paid for the family trip each year

 

@yakpoo saw your post. Why 35-d cents?

 

A while ago, I would come in after a late night of carousing and spend an hour or so seeing what eBay had to offer. Reminds me of a line from an old Willie Nelson song... "I ain't never gone to bed with an ugly [coin], but I've sure woke up with a few".

 

I read a book by Scott Travers about coin investing "Do's & Don'ts". One of the big "DON'Ts" was buying bulk cent rolls...especially circulated ones.

It's hard enough finding one (1) person who will pay retail for a common-date circulated coin...and it's REALLY hard to find 2,000 of them!

 

These rolls (at today's prices) contain about $58 worth of copper...which is a little less than half of what I paid. That's about 3¢ per coin. I would have to sell them for at least 6¢ per coin just to break even. Perhaps...one day....

 

Here's where Copper was nine (9) months ago when this thread began...



...and here we are today.



Up over 50%!

 

I have a copper Zombucks Collection that i am working on as well as some bars and rounds.

 

As others have said, you probably need to trade Copper Futures to really make money...but I love Zombuck's designs!

 

Just imagine how much copper stacking you
would need to do to make anything, there’s
always aluminum cans..LOL

 

It may may be more profitable to take them to Michigan for the deposit.
Let's crunch the numbers...

 

Back when I started collecting before I got into PM's much I bought copper in the form of 999 rounds and bars just because it was way cheaper than silver, I've gotten smarter since and have invested more in silver and gold, but at one point I had over 500 ounces of copper bullion (31.25 Lbs)!!
I still buy different rounds just for their designs but not for stacking...

 

That must take up allot of closet space...LOL

 

Yeeeessss, it does lol, if anything even remotely round is dropped on my bedroom floor it automatically rolls to the depression in the floor that is known as my closet...

 

keep it going