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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 4652121, member: 27832&quot;]As far as using copper to speculate or store value -- I look at the &quot;nice suit&quot; argument that gold bugs use all the time (&quot;an ounce bought a nice toga in ancient Rome, it buys a nice suite in London today&quot;).</p><p><br /></p><p>A ton of copper cents is worth about $3K face value. If you could find someone to pay full copper spot, it would be closer to $6K.</p><p><br /></p><p>If copper &quot;holds its value through the ages&quot; (except it might not) &quot;like gold and silver&quot; (them either), that ton of copper cents will still buy you a nice living-room set in 30 years, even if the price of the furniture has gone from $6K to $60K.</p><p><br /></p><p>But <b>it&#039;s still a ton of cents, and you&#039;ve had to climb around them for 30 years</b>.</p><p><br /></p><p>And meanwhile, if you&#039;d put the money into a couple of nice index funds, yadda, yadda, yadda.</p><p><br /></p><p>Greenbacks under the mattress: don&#039;t even <i>retain</i> their value over time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Pennies in the crawlspace, silver in the closet, gold in the hidden drawer: retain their real value (on average, over a long enough period, usually), but don&#039;t grow.</p><p><br /></p><p>Real estate: <b>earns returns</b> during the time you&#039;re holding it, if you lease. May even be defendable in an apocalypse.</p><p><br /></p><p>Equities: <b>earn returns</b>, <i>and</i> grow. Or shrink, or go to zero -- but, on average, when diversified, grow. But aren&#039;t shiny, and are no good against apocalypses.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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