Copper Pennies: Speculating + The Future.... Thoughts?

[Omega]

I was recently talked to this guy at a garage sale who used to own a coin shop back in the late 60's and early 70's. He said he used to sell 100 fv bags of silver coins for $120, and 1000 fv bags for $1160. He was telling me about how people would laugh at him, and tell him he was stupid trying to sell coins for that much, etc. Well look at it now, the bags are worth $1,500 and $15,000.

Now with copper pennies, currently a 50 fv bag costs ~70-75 bucks, for $110 melt in copper. Now, I'm sure there are people out there who think, STUPID, why would anyone want to hoard pennies? I don't want to buy copper pennies above face, so what I am considering is buying a Ryedale sorter for ~350, and sorting $200 in pennies a week, and keeping all the copper ones for a long term investment. I just don't want to look back in 20 years and miss this opportunity. So what my question is, do you think it's going to be worth it to hoard these pennies for the next 10-20 years? What do you think the price of copper will do between now and then? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[mishra142]

I think that the opportunity is certainly there for price to increase substantially. But you are going to tie up a nice chunk of change (no pun intended) I personally sort pennies to sell to invest in silver. I feel silver is a better 10-20 year investment than copper. Just my opinion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Patrick Star]

I say go for it, I too am hoarding copper pennies a little bit. Anyway everything starts small and will go big and that goes for prices and number.

 

[Dozer D]

Go for it and hoard as much as possible, providing you can put up the cash as long term, and also the storage room needed. Look at it this way: in 5-10 years if a copper cent could be worth 3,4 cents; what financial band would pay you 200-300% return on your investment after 5 years. Could be talking BIG bucks. Forget it as being cents/pennies, but as a percentage investment return. If you don't, then you'll kick yourself as: coulda, shoulda, woulda done it back in 2013.

 

[Iamrussell]

I think its been brought up here before but not sure if copper will ever become a PM-
If it does then ya
Also depend on when/if the gov ever stops producing them and pulls them from usage
Like the others have said if you have the cash and storage then I'd say go for it

-------------------------------------
just keep stacking, just keep stacking, stacking stacking stacking

 

[FormerTeller]

Copper never has and never will be a precious metal. Pennies are currently illegal to melt. While it would be a great investment if the value tripled or more in the next 5 years, it is far more likely that it will take much, much longer than that for the value to raise that much, assuming Congress eventually allows them to be melted. Selling the copper for whatever you can get out of it now and reinvesting the funds is a far, far better choice, whether you invest in gold, silver, or mutual funds, IMO.

 

[dbigkahunna]

Why mess with copper cents. You can buy insulated #2 scrap copper wire paying cash you can get it for 30% less than the posted price for 85% recovery scrap #2. Keep your buys less than $20.00. Be sure to give a receipt and be sure the people you are buying from have a DL or photo ID to keep out of dutch with law enforcement. I buy about 50 pounds or so this way every month and sell it to a dealer when I get a 55 gallon drum full. I make sure I get #1 price for it. I have a stripper I use and cut it to the proper length. I also have records in case there is a inquiry from LE. I know a lot of electricians that wind up with nice amounts of left over wire. They do not want to take the time to strip it. It winds up being beer money for them and about the same for me. Every once and a while I get a dump of the big wire and do ok.
Much better than hording pennies. A thousand pounds of copper will take up a lot of space and you better have help when you load it up.
Same applies to nickles.
If the price of copper makes a cent worth 2 cents scrap yes you have doubled your money, But it takes a lot of cents to be worth serious folding money. And if you are going through pocket change or buying bags, your time has to be worth something.
Just my opinion.

 

[50cent]

dawg this guy at a garage sale who gave you this whole cent spec-u-lation, read my thread on it a LONG TIME ago. He plagiarized off fiddy here.

 

[50cent]

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/c...k-1960s-copper-will-precious-metal-proof.html

 

[Spizzerinctum]

If copper un-expectedly went way down in price you could still get your 1 cent back for each penny. You might loose on your scrap in that case. In a pinch I could take my hoard to the store and spend it.

Why mess with copper cents. You can buy insulated #2 scrap copper wire paying cash you can get it for 30% less than the posted price for 85% recovery scrap #2. Keep your buys less than $20.00. Be sure to give a receipt and be sure the people you are buying from have a DL or photo ID to keep out of dutch with law enforcement. I buy about 50 pounds or so this way every month and sell it to a dealer when I get a 55 gallon drum full. I make sure I get #1 price for it. I have a stripper I use and cut it to the proper length. I also have records in case there is a inquiry from LE. I know a lot of electricians that wind up with nice amounts of left over wire. They do not want to take the time to strip it. It winds up being beer money for them and about the same for me. Every once and a while I get a dump of the big wire and do ok.
Much better than hording pennies. A thousand pounds of copper will take up a lot of space and you better have help when you load it up.
Same applies to nickles.
If the price of copper makes a cent worth 2 cents scrap yes you have doubled your money, But it takes a lot of cents to be worth serious folding money. And if you are going through pocket change or buying bags, your time has to be worth something.
Just my opinion.

 

[Omega]

Awesome stuff 50, I'll also use the Ryedale for dimes (and maybe nickels), so I would be making back some money instantly. Also just found a buyer @ 1.45c each tonight!!!! So it would definitely be worth it for me right now. I need to get my bankroll up a little more before I purchase the machine anyways, I just like to plan ahead :P haha

 

[ArkieBassMan]

Other things to consider when discussing hoarding copper cents for the future lifting of the melt-ban: Scrapyards do not pay melt. Shipping costs to send hundreds/thousands of pounds directly to a refiner that pays melt or very close to it will be very steep.

If you can make a decent profit NOW, I see little sense in hoarding. Even if copper doubles-triples in price over the next 20 years or so, I think the money tied up in copper cents could be invested more wisely. The melt-ban may not be lifted in your lifetime.

 

[Omega]

I've still got another 70-80 years 0.0 haha, and if this guys gonna be buying for 1.45 each, I'll sell to him without a doubt

 

[SilverForBrains]

Like anything else do a little bit of it, and store it away. don't do enough that it affects your silver hunting funds. stash away maybe a box of copper cents a week, you won't miss $100 a month

 

[jamesandsons]

Another factor I don't see much talk about is inflation. If you invested $120 in 1968 and just earned interest at the rate of inflation you'd have $807 today. So the $1500 bag of silver coins is worth about 2x inflation, but surely anyone seriously interested in profits would want to do much better than 2x inflation.

I'm no expert by any means, but I think the way to invest in metals is to buy low and sell high, rather than to buy and hold. I'm turning over every $100 in FV copper I get as fast as I can. If I had more dollars to spare I might hold it for a short while if copper might go up, but I certainly wouldn't count on beating inflation over a few decades.

 

[crhgymnast1]

Awesome stuff 50, I'll also use the Ryedale for dimes (and maybe nickels), so I would be making back some money instantly. Also just found a buyer @ 1.45c each tonight!!!! So it would definitely be worth it for me right now. I need to get my bankroll up a little more before I purchase the machine anyways, I just like to plan ahead :P haha

did u find a buyer via craigslist

 

[Omega]

Met him at a garage sale hahahah

 

[MIhunter]

One must always consider opportunity cost. If I invest $100 in copper Lincoln cents that is $100 I can't invest in silver, gold, stock, bond, real estate etc. invest all of your money in one sector of the economy or one type of commodity and you could win big or lose big.

If you are going to the trouble of buying a ryedale to search a high volume of pennies you should do your best to earn a profit from every coin you can. Not just IH, wheats, copper Canadians, but also copper Lincolns as well.

The latest I expect the ban on melting US pennies is 20 more years. By then then newest copper penny (1982) will be 51 years old. Likely copper pennies will account for less than 2% of all pennies in circulation thus there melting will Not be a problem. More likely the mint will stop making pennies well before that. After a few years of the government having the sole right to melt pennies the melt ban will be lifted. It will be interesting to see in Canada if the government lifts the melt ban in a few years, now that the Canadian penny is no more.

 

[Omega]

So after some number crunching, there are around 142 billion copper pennies made and 296 billion zinc. That total comes out to around 440 billion. Now, this tells us that copper pennies account for around 32.5% of pennies in circulation. If 32.5% of pennies in circulation are copper, why the hell am I getting 16% max? This goes to show that almost 50% of copper pennies are horded already. Zinc pennies have been increasing in percent at about 2% per year. If we say all copper pennies are left in circulation, then in 16 years, copper will account for <1% of pennies in circulation. If we say that only 16% of pennies are copper, in less than 7 years, copper will account for <1% in circulation. Now once this is the case, the government should have no issue lifting the melt ban. And those numbers 16 and 7 years don't even account for the fact that there will always be people pulling the copper from circulation. Because of this, I feel that saving them as an investment will be worth it. Maybe in 7 years I'll be able to sell them for a decent price to pay off some of my student loans. Haha

 

[MIhunter]

So after some number crunching, there are around 142 billion copper pennies made and 296 billion zinc. That total comes out to around 440 billion. Now, this tells us that copper pennies account for around 32.5% of pennies in circulation. If 32.5% of pennies in circulation are copper, why the hell am I getting 16% max? This goes to show that almost 50% of copper pennies are horded already. Z

Horded, exported, thrown away (landfill), or worn out and melted by the govt. Copper pennies don't last in circulation forever!
Take 5 boxes of pennies, separate out the copper Lincoln memorials and record how many for each year. You will have many more 1980-2 vs 1959-1961, even when you account for differences in original mintage amounts.
In fact do that with 50 boxes (as long as they are well mixed and not down stream from a ryedale) and you could have enough data to figure out the decay rate for copper pennies in circulation!