let the hoarding begin!

[FormerTeller]

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/15/news/economy/pennies_nickels/index.htm?source=yahoo_hosted

 

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[madwest]

It's been mentioned before that if there were no $0.01 or $0.05 coin, it wouldn't mean that e-payment has to be in $0.10 increments. The rounding at the cash register would be done only if payment was in cash (left to the single cent if payment was by check, debit, or CC).

It seems that is what they did in in Australia starting 1991.

Here is an analysis showing the potential effect.

http://www.scc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/whatisstatistics/coins.html

 

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[mts]

It's been mentioned before that if there were no $0.01 or $0.05 coin, it wouldn't mean that e-payment has to be in $0.10 increments. The rounding at the cash register would be done only if payment was in cash (left to the single cent if payment was by check, debit, or CC).

It seems that is what they did in in Australia starting 1991.

Here is an analysis showing the potential effect.

http://www.scc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/whatisstatistics/coins.html

Interesting link and good point about only cash payments needing to be rounded. That would save a lot of money for the government and the public in general. I'm on board... let's dump the penny and nickel. That's better than trying to come up with a cheaper alternative to production which will only get us through a few more years anyway.

 

[MIhunter]

Here is what will happen to the penny and nickle. While searching look for "made in china" or the Ca Mint mark. Ca is the China Asia mint mark. I also think the Chinese will have another mint in India, coin will be made of brass and look for the paper lable "made in india" or the Ci (china india) mint mark. There will be another mint and it will use the WM mint mark.

No, no one wants to ship $20 K worth of pennies overseas to here when the boat ride probably costs $5 K inself. Doesn't make sense. If the Canadians can get away with minting pennies for less than a penny, then we should follow them. Canadian money is on parity with ours so results should be similar.

The Canadians talk about dropping their one cent coin but so far they haven't.
Canadian loses money on there 1 cent coin but they make money on everything else!
Their less than $1 dollar coins are all plated steel (1,5,10,25,50 cent)
Their $1 and $2 dollar coins are mostly nickel but they are switching to plated steel with new technology that prevents counterfieting.
They have no $1 or $2 bill.


We could keep the penny by getting rid of the $1 bill. The mint would post huge profits on selling $1 coins. People would accept the $1 coins if the had no alternative. To minimize losses from the one cent, change it too copper plated steel. Further improve the bottom line, by changing the 5, 10 and 25 cent coins to nickel plated steel.

 

[warhawk77]

Am I thinking wrong

A old penny is worth almost $0.025 each so that is what a 250% increase in investment. I know you can't melt them down but at some point we will be able to.

Is my thinking on this wrong

To me the penny has more bang for the buck than any other coin.

1 penny $0.01 has $0.0248 in copper
5 nickel $0.05 has $0.0556 in copper/nickel

So 5 pennies would be $0.124 in copper.

5 pennies might weight more then the nickel and would take up a little more room.

I got the info from Current Melt Value Of Coins - How Much Is Your Coin Worth?

If the price of nickel goes up then the value of nickels will go up but not sure if people are stocking up on nickel. I know the do gold and silver, not sure if any are stocking up on copper.

 

[mts]

Re: Am I thinking wrong

A old penny is worth almost $0.025 each so that is what a 250% increase in investment. I know you can't melt them down but at some point we will be able to.

Is my thinking on this wrong

To me the penny has more bang for the buck than any other coin.

1 penny $0.01 has $0.0248 in copper
5 nickel $0.05 has $0.0556 in copper/nickel

So 5 pennies would be $0.124 in copper.

5 pennies might weight more then the nickel and would take up a little more room.

I got the info from Current Melt Value Of Coins - How Much Is Your Coin Worth?

If the price of nickel goes up then the value of nickels will go up but not sure if people are stocking up on nickel. I know the do gold and silver, not sure if any are stocking up on copper.

Yes. Many of us are stocking up on copper. Pennies are the best vaue but require the most work which brings profitability down significantly. Nickels can simply be purchased and stored with little effort. However, one could argue that pennies are closer to "pure bullion" and may continue to be traded as such without the need for melting. So far, nickels haven't obtained that status. But it doesn't have to be an either-or situation. I currently hoard both.

 

[namster]

There are some out there who think they will be trading copper after the apocalypse. I will say it again, PMs are for wealth preservation and would likely not be exchanged as currency for goods/services unless a) you have contacts in the outside world, or b) regional stability has been restored. You can not eat, hunt, travel, protect your family with PMs. Granted, many here understand this, but I also know many do not. There is a youtube vid posted here with some fool who has 6K pounds of copper that he expects to trade with during societal meltdown.

 

[warhawk77]

Thanks for the info guys/gals. I am stocking up on other supplies as I know I can't eat copper

 

[mts]

There are some out there who think they will be trading copper after the apocalypse. I will say it again, PMs are for wealth preservation and would likely not be exchanged as currency for goods/services unless a) you have contacts in the outside world, or b) regional stability has been restored. You can not eat, hunt, travel, protect your family with PMs. Granted, many here understand this, but I also know many do not. There is a youtube vid posted here with some fool who has 6K pounds of copper that he expects to trade with during societal meltdown.

This is another fine example of black and white thinking. You do realize that there are an infinite number of possible scenarios between where we are today and a complete apocalypse right? And in many of those scenarios PM's can be valuable to you.......

 

[namster]

There are some out there who think they will be trading copper after the apocalypse. I will say it again, PMs are for wealth preservation and would likely not be exchanged as currency for goods/services unless a) you have contacts in the outside world, or b) regional stability has been restored. You can not eat, hunt, travel, protect your family with PMs. Granted, many here understand this, but I also know many do not. There is a youtube vid posted here with some fool who has 6K pounds of copper that he expects to trade with during societal meltdown.

This is another fine example of black and white thinking. You do realize that there are an infinite number of possible scenarios between where we are today and a complete apocalypse right? And in many of those scenarios PM's can be valuable to you.......

My post pretty much covers it IMO. In between here and then (if then ever really happens, we should all hope it does not) PMs will be good for wealth preservation. If things got really bad, like SHTF, I can not envision a circumstance where I would trade precious food or resources for a bag of copper cents. Food, tangible goods, and services would be far more valuable. IMO.

Perhaps you could describe a scenario where two parties would agree to trade resources for copper? Out side of hedging against the fiat currency (wealth preservation) I do not see it.

 

[mts]

There are some out there who think they will be trading copper after the apocalypse. I will say it again, PMs are for wealth preservation and would likely not be exchanged as currency for goods/services unless a) you have contacts in the outside world, or b) regional stability has been restored. You can not eat, hunt, travel, protect your family with PMs. Granted, many here understand this, but I also know many do not. There is a youtube vid posted here with some fool who has 6K pounds of copper that he expects to trade with during societal meltdown.

This is another fine example of black and white thinking. You do realize that there are an infinite number of possible scenarios between where we are today and a complete apocalypse right? And in many of those scenarios PM's can be valuable to you.......

My post pretty much covers it IMO. In between here and then (if then ever really happens, we should all hope it does not) PMs will be good for wealth preservation. If things got really bad, like SHTF, I can not envision a circumstance where I would trade precious food or resources for a bag of copper cents. Food, tangible goods, and services would be far more valuable. IMO.

Perhaps you could describe a scenario where two parties would agree to trade resources for copper? Out side of hedging against the fiat currency (wealth preservation) I do not see it.

Again, there are an infinite number of situations between SHTF and where we are now where people WILL trade resources for PM's (including copper). There are also an infinite number of variations of "SHTF", some less "sh*ty" than others where people aren't exactly starving to death but still need to barter with others to get along in their day to day lives. Think about things you have extras of that aren't food that you would potentially trade to someone else who is in need: gloves, tape, wire, buckets, plastic sheeting, socks, nails, rocks, musical instruments, books, dental floss, air freshener, and other such stuff. Perhaps we are slowly recovering after a currency collapse or war and there is no formal type of currency available (or people don't trust it). Use your imagination. As soon as you stop thinking in black and white you should be able to come up with an infinite number of scenarios where you may or may not be able to trade copper for something else.

Here is an example: The dollar has collapsed. People are getting along relatively well considering what has happened. But there is no formal currency. Your neighbor comes to you and asks you if you have any air freshener because they have run out and a mouse died behind the wall. You have plenty of air freshener and ask them what they have to trade for it. They don't have anything else that you technically need but they do have a pound of copper pennies. You decide to take the trade because you think you can trade the copper to someone else. If not, you also recognize that a recovery is occurring and some day those pennies will be worth way more than what you traded for. That's the way "money" officially started. It's not too difficult to imagine this type of scenario happening in the future since it happened time and time again in the past. But if you think that the only two possibilities are complete collapse (road warrior/mad max) and where we are today, then you are not going to be able to see such simple scenarios.

Note: I'm not guaranteeing that someone will be able to trade copper if things get worse. In fact, as things steadily decline, people will eventually be unwilling to take copper, silver, and gold (in that order). In other words, there could be a time where you will not be able to trade silver but you will still be able to trade gold. And there could be a time when no one will want gold either. But it is not an on-off switch. We do not instantly go from one extreme to the other with nothing in between (unless the world gets wiped out instantly by an asteroid or something).

Beware of black and white thinking... The world is not black and white. It is made up of a whole spectrum of colors.

 

[legend76]

There are some out there who think they will be trading copper after the apocalypse. I will say it again, PMs are for wealth preservation and would likely not be exchanged as currency for goods/services unless a) you have contacts in the outside world, or b) regional stability has been restored. You can not eat, hunt, travel, protect your family with PMs. Granted, many here understand this, but I also know many do not. There is a youtube vid posted here with some fool who has 6K pounds of copper that he expects to trade with during societal meltdown.

This is another fine example of black and white thinking. You do realize that there are an infinite number of possible scenarios between where we are today and a complete apocalypse right? And in many of those scenarios PM's can be valuable to you.......

Or, let's use food as an example instead of air freshener....

Let's say you have an abundance of fresh eggs from your chickens, and the excess will spoil before you eat them. Let's assume you have no vinegar or other means to preserve said eggs. You might trade them for copper bullion if they had no other barter item

My post pretty much covers it IMO. In between here and then (if then ever really happens, we should all hope it does not) PMs will be good for wealth preservation. If things got really bad, like SHTF, I can not envision a circumstance where I would trade precious food or resources for a bag of copper cents. Food, tangible goods, and services would be far more valuable. IMO.

Perhaps you could describe a scenario where two parties would agree to trade resources for copper? Out side of hedging against the fiat currency (wealth preservation) I do not see it.

Again, there are an infinite number of situations between SHTF and where we are now where people WILL trade resources for PM's (including copper). There are also an infinite number of variations of "SHTF", some less "sh*ty" than others where people aren't exactly starving to death but still need to barter with others to get along in their day to day lives. Think about things you have extras of that aren't food that you would potentially trade to someone else who is in need: gloves, tape, wire, buckets, plastic sheeting, socks, nails, rocks, musical instruments, books, dental floss, air freshener, and other such stuff. Perhaps we are slowly recovering after a currency collapse or war and there is no formal type of currency available (or people don't trust it). Use your imagination. As soon as you stop thinking in black and white you should be able to come up with an infinite number of scenarios where you may or may not be able to trade copper for something else.

Here is an example: The dollar has collapsed. People are getting along relatively well considering what has happened. But there is no formal currency. Your neighbor comes to you and asks you if you have any air freshener because they have run out and a mouse died behind the wall. You have plenty of air freshener and ask them what they have to trade for it. They don't have anything else that you technically need but they do have a pound of copper pennies. You decide to take the trade because you think you can trade the copper to someone else. If not, you also recognize that a recovery is occurring and some day those pennies will be worth way more than what you traded for. That's the way "money" officially started. It's not too difficult to imagine this type of scenario happening in the future since it happened time and time again in the past. But if you think that the only two possibilities are complete collapse (road warrior/mad max) and where we are today, then you are not going to be able to see such simple scenarios.

Note: I'm not guaranteeing that someone will be able to trade copper if things get worse. In fact, as things steadily decline, people will eventually be unwilling to take copper, silver, and gold (in that order). In other words, there could be a time where you will not be able to trade silver but you will still be able to trade gold. And there could be a time when no one will want gold either. But it is not an on-off switch. We do not instantly go from one extreme to the other with nothing in between (unless the world gets wiped out instantly by an asteroid or something).

Beware of black and white thinking... The world is not black and white. It is made up of a whole spectrum of colors.

 

[mts]

Or, let's use food as an example instead of air freshener....

Let's say you have an abundance of fresh eggs from your chickens, and the excess will spoil before you eat them. Let's assume you have no vinegar or other means to preserve said eggs. You might trade them for copper bullion if they had no other barter item

Exactly. Good example. The less you need an item the more likely you are to trade it for some other "lesser" item like copper bullion.

And let's not forget that you can only trade for something that the other person wants to give up. So in the air freshener example, my neighbor comes to me looking to trade. My first thought might be to ask him for some food in exchange for the air freshener. But he's not going to give me that because it is too valuable. If I don't want some "lesser" item that he is willing to part with then we aren't going to be able to make the trade and he is going to move on.

People always want to go to the extreme and say that only food and guns will be valuable in those circumstances. The reality is that food and guns will be the MOST valuable in the worst case SHTF scenario. But that doesn't mean you won't be able to trade with other things. Smaller trades of less valuable things will take place. And for those trades, just about any item will do as long as someone else values it as much as the thing they are trying to trade/get. Copper pennies, silver, gold, socks, shoes, shovels, gloves, medicine, water filters, plastic tarps, nails, wood, hammers, toys, and many, many other things fit the bill.

Again, it's not black and white....

 

[namster]

Honestly, I hope that bet works out for you guys. I really do.

 

[sack0silver]

I live around DC, I am going to pass on the penny hoarding, I will be nice and dead if SHTF

 

[mts]

I live around DC, I am going to pass on the penny hoarding, I will be nice and dead if SHTF

What does shtf have to do with penny hoarding? Can't people hoard pennies for the sake of a possible investment 20 years from now? What if those pennies are worth 5 to 10 times face value by then?

 

[namster]

What does shtf have to do with penny hoarding? Can't people hoard pennies for the sake of a possible investment 20 years from now? What if those pennies are worth 5 to 10 times face value by then?

I think this is a far more sane reason to hoard copper pennies, long term investment. That is why I am CRHing for silver.

 

[sack0silver]

There is nothing wrong with it, everyone can do what they please. Me personally, 5-10 return on a penny in 20 years, and the time spent sorting, space for storing, etc, all that is just not worth it. I'd rather stick to silver, less weight and a better outlook on future return than copper.

 

[mts]

There is nothing wrong with it, everyone can do what they please. Me personally, 5-10 return on a penny in 20 years, and the time spent sorting, space for storing, etc, all that is just not worth it. I'd rather stick to silver, less weight and a better outlook on future return than copper.

To each his own. I can do a whole box of pennies in about an hour and a half. From that I am just about guaranteed to find about $6.25 face worth of copper that is currently worth about $15.62. If I were to search for silver halves in my area I'd be lucky to find one 40% half in three times as much effort. Silver is a lot more sexy. But in my area it isn't worth the hassle.

Don't get me wrong. I have silver and gold too. To me it doesn't have to be an either-or situation.

 

[MIhunter]

There are some out there who think they will be trading copper after the apocalypse. I will say it again, PMs are for wealth preservation and would likely not be exchanged as currency for goods/services unless a) you have contacts in the outside world, or b) regional stability has been restored. You can not eat, hunt, travel, protect your family with PMs. Granted, many here understand this, but I also know many do not. There is a youtube vid posted here with some fool who has 6K pounds of copper that he expects to trade with during societal meltdown.

Bullets are what will count if society falls apart!
Food, shelter, water, clothing, guns, ammo.

 

[MIhunter]

Here is an example: The dollar has collapsed. People are getting along relatively well considering what has happened. But there is no formal currency. Your neighbor comes to you and asks you if you have any air freshener because they have run out and a mouse died behind the wall. You have plenty of air freshener and ask them what they have to trade for it. They don't have anything else that you technically need but they do have a pound of copper pennies. You decide to take the trade because you think you can trade the copper to someone else. If not, you also recognize that a recovery is occurring and some day those pennies will be worth way more than what you traded for. That's the way "money" officially started. It's not too difficult to imagine this type of scenario happening in the future since it happened time and time again in the past. But if you think that the only two possibilities are complete collapse (road warrior/mad max) and where we are today, then you are not going to be able to see such simple scenarios.



Society has changed alot in the last 100-200 years, we depended alot on others for basic services and goods. Very few of us could survive without a store to go to and buy food, clothing, medicine. How would we keep warm without natural gas lines and electricity. How would we fuel or cars when the gasoline is gone from the pumps. If something breaks how will we fix it if we don't know how or can't get the right part. Our industrialized society with division of labor make it impossible for 99% of what we think of as life to continue if commerce collapses. That's why if society falls apart, as soon as the canned food in an area is depleted or the next severe winter....pooof we'll be gone!