I've heard of silver hoards on this forums. I've seen some of them. A few days ago, I heard of people keeping all pre-82 copper cents. Is it worth it hoarding all that copper? I know that the value of the copper in a cent is more than double its face value, but if you start hording ,you will end up having pounds and pounds of the coins. I have decide that I won't horde copper, I think silver is easier instead.
http://www.cointalk.com/t144825/ Check this out. This topic and your specific inquiries have been covered quite a bit lately. I realize that it is not real easy to under cover all with a search, so don't feel bad for asking. By the way, welcome to the neighborhood. If you have not checked out the introduction thread yet, it might be of interest to you. I have thought about purchasing some heavy duty drums to dump zinc cents in. I think zinc might be a better investment time to melt combined. Have fun.
I keep copper cents out of my change. Spend everything else. (Unless it's silver or collectible of course!) I figure that one day one of two things will happen: 1: Govt will lift the ban on recycling the cents as copper or 2: There will be a market for them as collectibles for my descendants. Either way, we have a head start by putting the copper back now. Same thing happened with silver in the 60s and 70s after they took it out of coins. This is just the natural progression. I wish I had been old enough to take out as much silver then as I have copper now!
Why not? I just fill a 5-gallon pail, it's nearly full now. Copper has gone up a $1-2 since I started and, no matter what, my hoard will be worth at least 1 cent each. Eventually, the ban will be lifted just like it was for silver. When that happens, I'll be able to make a nice profit. Oh....I save the 1982 coppers too. Why not? Saving 81's back is for noobs. It's easy to tell the zinc from the copper.
You'll probably never amass enough copper cents to make much of a difference in your retirement fund. But when I search rolls, I hold every copper cent. I mean coinflation says the melt value is 2.7c so, I nearly triple my value just bey not dumping it back. I have a lot of copper. lol Bradthad has it right.
