copper penny hoarding question.

[pbinnyc]

hi everyone,
my dad has a 5 gallon water bottle full of pennies he wants to give me. i sorted through my own vase full of pennies, and i recovered plenty of pre-83's and quite a few wheats. he's been dropping his pennies in this jug for years, so i assume i'll get a bunch more. so my question is, whats the point of hoarding copper pennies with no numismatic value? i saw on coinflation.com that they contain almosts 3 cents worth of copper, but it's against the law to melt them down. furthermore, even if you were to risk breaking the law by melting them yourself, you couldn't just take the hunk of melted pennies to a junkyard to sell, could you? i mean, the junkyard can't test the "purity", or whatever, of the hunk of copper, can they? and what do those guys who buy pre-83 pennies do with them?
regards,
pb

 

[quiksilver]

To start with its pre 82 , most of us have given up weighing 82s and just send them all back, i know i have.

most of us are saving the copper pennies for when we will be able to melt them or enough people are willing to buy them. There are stories now of some selling them on feebay.

 

[SFBayArea]

It's not 83 but 82 where they switched from copper to zincolns.

I would not go to the scrap yard to melt them since it's illegal to melt U.S. pennies & nickels in the U.S. It's up to the metal refining guy and whether they are upright or slightly crooked. I have to mention that technically if you get caught by say the feds, they could prosecute you and every U.S. penny melted could be considered one count of the crime. I personally wouldn't do it however it doesn't stop you from melting copper Canadian pennies in the U.S. If you have a giant batch of Canadian pennies, you got from CRH, there's nothing stopping you from melting them because we are in the U.S. and not Canada. Cops don't enforce Canadian laws here just like we don't enforce Mexican laws. However if you live close to the border, don't go to Canadian to move them here because Canadian has export laws designed to prohibit large quantities of pennies crossing borders. With that said, as long as you found the Canadian coppers by CRH, you're not in violation of Canadian export laws and you're in the U.S., you can melt the Canadian copper cents for profit.

 

[SFBayArea]

If you took a bunched melted copper to the scrap yard, they might ask you where it came from. You'd better have an answer ready. There's a lot of theives who steal copper from construction yards so the mainstream scrap yard might ask you to tell them where the stuff came from. I've never sold anything to a scrap yard other than aluminum cans or glass bottles so I don't know how they treat these things. If you go to the scrap yard with a bunch of copper Canadian cents, let us know what they say. Plus Canadian coppers have higher copper content. Earlier Canadian coppers are 98% copper. You should be able to melt the Canadians here in the U.S. unless someone knows of a U.S. law barring melting of Canadian coins.

 

[CardsNCoins]

To get back to the OP's concerns, you can sell them on eBay for 1.5 to 2 X face value (what do you care what the person that buys them does with them?), or you can just hoard them until such a time that you can legally sell them as scrap.

To the person dumping all 1982 pennies, that's just ridiculous. It has been said that about 75% of all 1982s are copper, and all it takes is a tiny bounce on the table to hear the difference between a copper 1982 and a zinc 1982.

Nick

 

[pbinnyc]

thanks for the responses. also thanks for setting me straight on the cut-off year for zinc (now i have to go through all my coppers and double check! lol). i was just curious about the copper thing. sfbayarea: yeah copper theft is a huge problem, my buddy owns a couple of rental houses in upstate ny, he had a couple tennants smash the walls to get at the copper pipes, and they gutted the BRAND NEW fridge to take the coils. like 10 grand in damage to get a couple hundred bucks for drugs.

 

[SilverAg47]

It has been said that about 75% of all 1982s are copper, and all it takes is a tiny bounce on the table to hear the difference between a copper 1982 and a zinc 1982.

Nick

I'm trying the hear the difference. They sound the exact same.

 

[CardsNCoins]

I'm trying the hear the difference. They sound the exact same.

Take a known zinc (1983 or later) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a thud, then take a known copper (1981 or earlier) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a light ringing tone to the sound of it hitting the table. Then take all your 1982s and do this and you will easily separate them. Never fails.

 

[SilverAg47]

I'm trying the hear the difference. They sound the exact same.

Take a known zinc (1983 or later) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a thud, then take a known copper (1981 or earlier) and drop it on your kitchen table and you will hear a light ringing tone to the sound of it hitting the table. Then take all your 1982s and do this and you will easily separate them. Never fails.

Wow! That works perfect! I was trying on the wrong surface before. Thanks!

 

[SFBayArea]

Just buy a small electric scale for $20 from Feebay.. I love my scale and I deam it essential for the coin hobby. Copper pennies weigh 3.0 to 3.1 grams while zincs weigh 2.5 to 2.6 grams. Get a scale and you can weigh all those 1982's.

 

[EpicDeuce]

Hey- So has anyone set up a coin comparitor operation from a unit off feebay to sort pennies? I was wondering if there were any differences between the CC30 or the MC-62 etc etc. I have seen some videos of them operating on youtube, but wasn't sure if anyone here had a good feeding system worked out.

 

[SFBayArea]

I have a Ryedale & you can feed coins into the comparitor manually too. I would still prefer the Ryedale since you can just put in $5.00 worth at a time and let it sort. Don't know what kind of comparator it uses. The Ryedale does occasionally gets stuck when two penny jam up the line so one does have to watch it. The one you set up from Ebay probably just has a comparitor & you manually feed the thing or if you can design your own feeder. You have to have it where you can't have two coins go in at once or else it gets stuck. I would say if you do it that way, it's faster than doing it the old fashion way by examining the dates individually but not faster than an actual Ryedale.

 

[mrxsys]

I wonder how many people are bouncing pennies off of their kitchen table because of this post. I know I tried it. Got a couple strange looks.....

HH

 

[EpicDeuce]

i throw all 1982 pennies back the heck with them its not worth the time and effort i save anything 1981 and older.

"A fool and his money are soon parted."

 

[mr_larry]

One more thing to think about...
My guess is that in 5 years or so, the penny will be officially removed from circulation. I would think that when that happens it would be perfectly legal to melt the pennies. It just seems logical since they won't actually be part of the US currency/coinage after they are considered worthless.

 

[SFBayArea]

If they get rid of the penny, they'll just create the 2 cent coin like in the Euros. Everything would have to be rounded and I don't know if merchants would be ok with that.

 

[HunterOfSnakes]

I've been going through approximately 100lbs of pennies, and there is more copper than zincs. I'm separating them, and keeping them until I feel like selling them on feebay or elsewhere. Right now, people are paying about $80+shipping for $50 of pre 83' pennies (33lbs).

 

[legend76]

i throw all 1982 pennies back the heck with them its not worth the time and effort i save anything 1981 and older.

I've been throwing all my 82's in the keeper pile. If 75% of 82's are copper, then I don't think a few Zinc 82's are gonna hurt anything. Heck, they're MY pennies. I'm not selling them now anyway. If you do ever melt them (when it's legal of course), I would assume you gonna get paid for copper and zinc separately. Wouldn't it separate when melted?

 

[mts]

I use my metal detector to sort pennies. It is very quick, 100% accurate, and requires no date checking. I can sort them as fast as I can pass a penny across the coil. It's nowhere near as fast as a rhydale. But it is WAY faster and more accurate than weighing, bouncing, or date checking. I already had the detector so there is no cost to me and it saves my eyes. I can't even imagine date checking boxes and boxes of pennies. But I know that a lot of people do it as well as checking for errors, wide AM's, and other oddities. Me? I just pass them over the coil and toss them into the keeper pile if they are copper. Otherwise, they go back to the bank.