People hoarding the copper cents

[scotto]

Got 60 rolls of pennies today, and when I did, the teller told me she can't believe the amount of people coming in to buy them to take out the pre-1982 pennies. And I'm in a small town!
Copper prices have been rising as of late, so I've been hoarding them too, I admit. Gives you something else to put aside, and makes looking thru rolls of cents a little more time consuming than looking thru them for an ultra-rare IHP or a very uncommon wheat.

Results of the penny search:

7 wheats
2 dimes
1 canadian
563 pre-'82

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[LJ]

Darn Scott....that is alot of pre 82's. Congrats!! 60 rolls is a little over over a box right? I guess I will have to start on those too.....lol. I don't want to miss the boat.....ha!

 

[TxTim]

Darn Scott....that is alot of pre 82's. Congrats!! 60 rolls is a little over over a box right? I guess I will have to start on those too.....lol. I don't want to miss the boat.....ha!

Don't waste your time yet, LJ - halves are doing too well for you right now!

 

[scotto]

I was a little concerned when I opened the first 12 rolls, and only got 6 pre-82's. And they were not all shiny new ones either. Almost as scarce as wheats for those rolls!

 

[hollowpointred]

is there much sense in hoarding copper pennies? it is illegal to melt them down and you cant bring them to a scrap yard. will they ever really be worth more than a penny? im not trying to be sarcastic, even though reading this it looks that way. i honestly am curious, is it worth it?

 

[odinthedog]

The US mint can't make laws. That bullcrap about not being able to melt down cents and nickles is just that...bullcrap. This money is ours, with which we can do what we want, whatever we see fit. How will they be able to tell if my big glob of copper (and believe me, I have big globs) came from cents. Only the legislative branch can 'make' laws. I say stick it to the man. If they want to release copper below spot value, I'm gonna open wide and take all they can produce. SUCKERS.

It's about time us common people are able to suck money out of these crooks.

 

[scotto]

is there much sense in hoarding copper pennies? it is illegal to melt them down and you cant bring them to a scrap yard. will they ever really be worth more than a penny? im not trying to be sarcastic, even though reading this it looks that way. i honestly am curious, is it worth it?

I look at it this way; Copper was recently up to about $3.10 per pound. If there are 135 copper cents to a pound, that makes each copper cent worth 2.3 cents each. If you go to a coin shop to buy a silver kennedy half, you'll pay about 5 bucks, when it is still only .50 cents face value.
That makes a roll of copper cents worth $1.15, when you can pick it up for .50 cents face.

People have said that copper prices will go thru the roof in the years to come, and people will be CRH for copper cents in years, and I'd rather start saving them now while I can get them fairly easy.
I've gotten 1070 coppers in the past few weeks, which have set me back only $10.70, but are worth almost $25.00.

 

[patpall22]

I've been looking into keeping those copper cents, the problem is you kinda need to be in a stationary location. Where i live in CA, almost half of every box are coppers but lugging them around with me every time I move is to unpractical.

 

[65gt350]

is there much sense in hoarding copper pennies? it is illegal to melt them down and you cant bring them to a scrap yard. will they ever really be worth more than a penny? im not trying to be sarcastic, even though reading this it looks that way. i honestly am curious, is it worth it?

It was illegal to melt silver coins from 1967 - 1969 too. The government then put machine to pull the silver coins out of circulation. What makes you think the government will do it differently this time? Lets say in 5 years the ban is lifted and copper is at $6 per pound. If you have $100 in pre 82 pennies it would be worth about $389.

I'll admit that I don't spend pre-82 cents.

 

[TxTim]

It is a good idea but I still believe your time is better spent picking off large hunks of silver while it is to be had rather than sorting through small pieces of copper.
The profit for finding 1 - 90% Kennedy = about 225 copper pennies at the moment. This also equals half a box of halves.
Hopefully, your average is better than that on boxes.
At some point, this will change and believe me, any time you can make a 100% return (as with pennies at the moment), you are doing very well!!!

 

[the.silver.standard]

I'll admit that it is not very profitable to sort the pennies right now. But I do it anyway. I don't watch a lot of television, but there are four hour long shows that I follow each week. I just make sure that i have about 20 rolls or so for each episode, and search them. If I waste time while I am already wasting time, then what is lost?

It is also neat that there is a possibility of finding errors and such, not that I have found anything but common double strikes.

I find just under 35% on average pre -82, but I have rolls of 82s set aside to weigh later.