@Estil said:
Well apparently at least one major bullion dealer has gotten in on the act...
Are they buying? I took a quick look and couldn't tell.
Just the fact that they're even bothering selling copper pennies is a good sign that it would be smart to collect them out of penny rolls while you can still get them/find them for face value. If only one could still do that in terms of finding silver dimes/quarters...I probably have better odds of finding a four leaf clover or winning Pick 4 than finding a silver in a roll of dimes or quarters...but hey as long as you get the rolls at face value you can't lose!
Why not. Not every collectible area has to have an extreme end value result to it. The joy one finds in collecting anything is more or less priceless to that person. Hard to value that. Some people collect matchbooks,bank coin wrappers,lint, barb wire, string,rocks, shells etc. Not sure how many of those "collectibles" will get the collector rich. But they may derive a sense of contentment nonetheless. No one has a crystal ball.
Successful transactions:Tookybandit. "Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others".
When the copper pennies are legal to melt to help provide copper to enable green energy production...
Copper won't be the issue. The issue will be the other minerals/metals that are also needed.
The enormous mintages of zinkies (since 1982) aren't providing enough pennies for commerce?
Don't ask me, ask the Treasury Department. Why did they implement the ban in the first place?
The ban was implemented because the government was worried about all the cents being removed from circulation and melted for the copper value. They needed to insure that there were enough zinc cents in cicrulation to cover the need. I think the need has been met after 40 years and the ban should be lifted.
When I search penny rolls, I sometimes do two rolls at a time and count the no. of copper cents in the sample. Usually there are about 15 on average in 100 coins. So we are talking about 15% of cents in circulation are copper pre-1982 1/2 coins.
@Joe_360 said:
...and now for something completely different...
A man buys a 1955 rusted Chevy that is not running - Bad investment, should have bough a Tesla
He stores it in his garage - waste of space
He stays home and works on it in his spare time/weekends - Waste of time
He buy parts to restore - Waste of money
He gets it running and the chrome is shiny - Poor return, needs to much care
He'll never see the returns - Good thing that he has a 401k, tech stocks, Saving, and life insurance
He sits back and enjoys his time, his efforts and the treasures that the common man cannot see
He passes on before any returns and leaves the rare auto to his Sons and Daughters
They smile as they remember the joy on their Fathers face that simple things bring, and memories that will stay forever on
My Father started my Lincoln collection, the value of collecting silver (1980) and the value of a buck for a rainy day, and I think about him every time I find and hold a good looking cent in my hand, that my Forum Friends in Priceless!
Haven’t read past the first page of this thread and only decided to read because of the number of associated posts. I’m glad I did because I find this post heart warming. Precious memories of love and lessons from our parents make me sentimental. Nice post!!!!!
Seated Half Society member #38 "Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
Interesting thread and I appreciate all the different perspectives given that I have been saving the pre 82 cents for the past four or five years.
I don’t have any grand hopes for a huge financial windfall on these but I was searching boxes of cents anyways so it was easy enough to toss them aside into separate bags.
As for the hourly value of my time?
During that period of intense roll searching, I was working two very stressful and demanding jobs and had a six figure income. I was also dealing with some very difficult challenges related to my terminally ill parents.
I found the roll searching to be a great stress reliever, relatively harmless entertainment and even had some meditative qualities. The value of that time roll searching when the world seemed to be crumbling around me was incalculable! I considered it time well spent and certainly better than drinking myself into a stupor or spilling my guts to a “shrink” that may or may not have been any good!
The old copper cents may eventually get dumped into the Coinstar by myself or my heirs someday but in the meantime they are not taking up so much space as to be a problem. Moving was indeed a nightmare, but my books and huge vinyl record collection were a much more cumbersome elements in that.
The copper may not be a high value investment, but the cost basis is very low and rock solid stable with little downside risk.
And, they have one other thing going for them.
Unlike the vast majority of Penny Stocks, their value is not going to zero!
Happy, humble, honored and proud recipient of the “You Suck” award 10/22/2014
@3stars said:
People are comparing apples and oranges. Silver is approx $18 an ounce, copper is approx $0.20 an ounce. Huge price difference makes silver worth keeping
The historic high for copper was just in March of this year: $5.02 per pound. There are about 145 copper cents to a pound. So earlier this year, each cent was worth approximately 3.5x their face value.
By comparison, the price of silver didn't really move above $3 per ounce until 1973. That's literally a decade after everyone and their uncle scrambled to remove every single silver dime and quarter they could from change. At that point, a silver dime was worth about 2.5x its face value. And remember that silver dropped pretty hard after the 80s Hunt Brothers run up. For example, in 1992 the low was just $3.67 per ounce. So as recently as 1992, when everyone would have been thrilled to find a silver dime in change, that dime was only "worth" about 3x face.
Yet people are scoffing at saving copper cents that were worth 3.5 times face just 6 months ago?
I'm saving my copper cents.
It's a good way of looking at it, I just see storage issues and transportation issues...
So we are talking about 15% of cents in circulation are copper pre-1982 1/2 coins.
Percentage of copper pennies in circulation runs consistently 25% here. There's at least one individual around with many thousands of dollars of copper pennies just waiting for the day when it is legal to melt them. Doesn't even have to heat the warehouse the pennies are stored in. When the pennies do become legal to melt I will be playing the same game was played in the '70's with silver coin. I'm thinking pure copper bars will be trading at $8/lb in the not too distant future.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
So just because someone is able to convince people to buy something in the rare coin business doesn't mean that it will ever be worth close to the price he's selling it for. Just as the gold plated statehood quarters are only worth face value, the fact that this dealer is marketing older cents as a store of metal value has no bearing as to whether it is.
@Estil said:
Just the fact that they're even bothering selling copper pennies is a good sign that it would be smart to collect them out of penny rolls while you can still get them/find them for face value.
Depends. What's your time worth? $2.50/hr.? > @daltex said:
So just because someone is able to convince people to buy something in the rare coin business doesn't mean that it will ever be worth close to the price he's selling it for. Just as the gold plated statehood quarters are only worth face value, the fact that this dealer is marketing older cents as a store of metal value has no bearing as to whether it is.
Are you the same person who didn't think the W quarters were a big thing either?
I found the roll searching to be a great stress reliever, relatively harmless entertainment and even had some meditative qualities. The value of that time roll searching when the world seemed to be crumbling around me was incalculable! I considered it time well spent and certainly better than drinking myself into a stupor or spilling my guts to a “shrink” that may or may not have been any good!
The old copper cents may eventually get dumped into the Coinstar by myself or my heirs someday but in the meantime they are not taking up so much space as to be a problem. Moving was indeed a nightmare, but my books and huge vinyl record collection were a much more cumbersome elements in that.
Ok - I am having a flashback here with this one. I must admit I did enjoy searching through the cents and pulling copper - it was entertaining and a bit of stress reliever plus it would give that treasure hunting bug a fix for me but eventually they all got dumped into the free coin sorter at one of my banks...then I had to look at all the boxes of vinyl records taking up a whole wall in my barn, just sitting there taking up space and we were moving! I had a dealer come in and look through them. He spent a day looking at them, and in the end he bought about 10 boxes. Not for much, maybe $1000 and it barely made a dent in the hoard. The cents, no one is going to come in and do that at the moment. Maybe someday...
The best thing for me with searching all those cents was that when I moved on to the half dollars. I was really fast at it by then and had a system in place for buying boxes and getting rid of the bags of halves. No coin sorter at the banks, just handed them the bags and they were deposited directly into my account. Granted having a fairly large amount in the accounts can be quite helpful. Anyways - after a few years of that the boxes dried up and there were way too many others that had joined in on the addiction. I was down to only one or two finds per box versus the five or more per box when I started. There were just too many people doing the same thing.
Like most who replied here, have at it! If you enjoy it do it but just realize there are way easier ways to do it and the scales are really "weighing" against you plus there are better fish to fry out there than the cents. Oh as for the vinyl LPs...I still have way too many. Does anyone really need multiple copies of the Beatles White Album with the low numbers on the cover or all those first pressings of the punk singles and LPs I collected back in the day...my wife doesn't seem to care so why should I! There are worse addictions than collecting copper cents, I moved on to things that take up even more space! My speaker collection is even worse...try collecting Acoustic Research AR-1's.
Comments
Home Shopping Club also sells coins.
Can someone please refer me to a case where an individual was successfully prosecuted for melting copper cents? Has it ever happened?
Why not. Not every collectible area has to have an extreme end value result to it. The joy one finds in collecting anything is more or less priceless to that person. Hard to value that. Some people collect matchbooks,bank coin wrappers,lint, barb wire, string,rocks, shells etc. Not sure how many of those "collectibles" will get the collector rich. But they may derive a sense of contentment nonetheless. No one has a crystal ball.
The ban was implemented because the government was worried about all the cents being removed from circulation and melted for the copper value. They needed to insure that there were enough zinc cents in cicrulation to cover the need. I think the need has been met after 40 years and the ban should be lifted.
When I search penny rolls, I sometimes do two rolls at a time and count the no. of copper cents in the sample. Usually there are about 15 on average in 100 coins. So we are talking about 15% of cents in circulation are copper pre-1982 1/2 coins.
Haven’t read past the first page of this thread and only decided to read because of the number of associated posts. I’m glad I did because I find this post heart warming. Precious memories of love and lessons from our parents make me sentimental. Nice post!!!!!
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
So?
D's: 50P,49S,45D+S,43D,41S,40D,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 241,435,610,654 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
Can you ship / deliver your copper cents to buyers for free? Otherwise you just blew your profits.
Interesting thread and I appreciate all the different perspectives given that I have been saving the pre 82 cents for the past four or five years.
I don’t have any grand hopes for a huge financial windfall on these but I was searching boxes of cents anyways so it was easy enough to toss them aside into separate bags.
As for the hourly value of my time?
During that period of intense roll searching, I was working two very stressful and demanding jobs and had a six figure income. I was also dealing with some very difficult challenges related to my terminally ill parents.
I found the roll searching to be a great stress reliever, relatively harmless entertainment and even had some meditative qualities. The value of that time roll searching when the world seemed to be crumbling around me was incalculable! I considered it time well spent and certainly better than drinking myself into a stupor or spilling my guts to a “shrink” that may or may not have been any good!
The old copper cents may eventually get dumped into the Coinstar by myself or my heirs someday but in the meantime they are not taking up so much space as to be a problem. Moving was indeed a nightmare, but my books and huge vinyl record collection were a much more cumbersome elements in that.
The copper may not be a high value investment, but the cost basis is very low and rock solid stable with little downside risk.
And, they have one other thing going for them.
Unlike the vast majority of Penny Stocks, their value is not going to zero!
Happy, humble, honored and proud recipient of the “You Suck” award 10/22/2014
Unlike the vast majority of Penny Stocks, their value is not going to zero!
Well, with inflation,..
It's a good way of looking at it, I just see storage issues and transportation issues...
My YouTube Channel
So we are talking about 15% of cents in circulation are copper pre-1982 1/2 coins.
Percentage of copper pennies in circulation runs consistently 25% here. There's at least one individual around with many thousands of dollars of copper pennies just waiting for the day when it is legal to melt them. Doesn't even have to heat the warehouse the pennies are stored in. When the pennies do become legal to melt I will be playing the same game was played in the '70's with silver coin. I'm thinking pure copper bars will be trading at $8/lb in the not too distant future.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
So just because someone is able to convince people to buy something in the rare coin business doesn't mean that it will ever be worth close to the price he's selling it for. Just as the gold plated statehood quarters are only worth face value, the fact that this dealer is marketing older cents as a store of metal value has no bearing as to whether it is.
Are you the same person who didn't think the W quarters were a big thing either?
Ok - I am having a flashback here with this one. I must admit I did enjoy searching through the cents and pulling copper - it was entertaining and a bit of stress reliever plus it would give that treasure hunting bug a fix for me but eventually they all got dumped into the free coin sorter at one of my banks...then I had to look at all the boxes of vinyl records taking up a whole wall in my barn, just sitting there taking up space and we were moving! I had a dealer come in and look through them. He spent a day looking at them, and in the end he bought about 10 boxes. Not for much, maybe $1000 and it barely made a dent in the hoard. The cents, no one is going to come in and do that at the moment. Maybe someday...
The best thing for me with searching all those cents was that when I moved on to the half dollars. I was really fast at it by then and had a system in place for buying boxes and getting rid of the bags of halves. No coin sorter at the banks, just handed them the bags and they were deposited directly into my account. Granted having a fairly large amount in the accounts can be quite helpful. Anyways - after a few years of that the boxes dried up and there were way too many others that had joined in on the addiction. I was down to only one or two finds per box versus the five or more per box when I started. There were just too many people doing the same thing.
Like most who replied here, have at it! If you enjoy it do it but just realize there are way easier ways to do it and the scales are really "weighing" against you plus there are better fish to fry out there than the cents. Oh as for the vinyl LPs...I still have way too many. Does anyone really need multiple copies of the Beatles White Album with the low numbers on the cover or all those first pressings of the punk singles and LPs I collected back in the day...my wife doesn't seem to care so why should I! There are worse addictions than collecting copper cents, I moved on to things that take up even more space! My speaker collection is even worse...try collecting Acoustic Research AR-1's.
Jim