Worth buying presorted pennies 2 cents each?

[sheepdog_tx]

I have an offer to buy virtually unlimited presorted 82s (minus wheats, canadians, odds, foreigns, etc) for 2 cents each. You guys think considering the labor and time its worth it?

 

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[Uncleslick18]

It really all depends on what you want to do...

Truthfully the only reason I do pennies is to stash away the wheats and other goodies that I find while doing them. Personally I could really care less about the 95% copper stuff, probably because I have had virtually no luck dumping it on Ebay...

If you're determined to buy pre 59-81 cents a 2 cents a piece, I've got about 2 grand worth in my basement that I'll sell you (lol).

To me it just wouldn't seem worth it.

On the other hand, I had been doing about 5-6 hundred dollars a week in cents and I have pretty much stopped now because I'm leaving the country at the end of the month for a while. To search that much I drove at least 50-60 miles round trip to pick up the pennies, it took AT LEAST 5 hours a week to run them all through the Reydale and sort everything the way that I do it, and then it took me at least another 2 hours a week to dump, and another 50-60 miles of driving to dump.

To me all that is worth doing because I enjoy doing it, to you it may not be. So in that case I would say yeah 2 cents a piece doesnt sound too bad, because I know what it takes to acquire that "2 cent penny" on the other end of it...

It really just depends on what your goal is I guess.

 

[SilverForBrains]

Wow UncleSlick, that's a lot of penny sorting! I do a few boxes here and there. Can you let me know what sort of cool stuff you have found? do you look for 99 wide AMs by any chance?

 

[baddbluff]

I say no. The reason why is this... Coinflation says the cents are worth about 2.2 cents in copper. If the ban were lifted TODAY, and you could sell them on eBay AT MELT, you would make no money on them after fees/shipping. In my opinion, the only way to hope for a profit in pennies is by buying them at face, finding an economical way to sort them, then hold on to them until the ban is lifted, then hope you can get fair market value for them.

 

[usandthem]

I used to sell pennies for two cents a piece. Then the price of copper went down and my buyer stopped buying. I still sort but I've cut my volume in half. If I find another buyer I'll sell them. No way would I buy pennies at 2X face unless I was sure I could sell them and make a profit in the near future.

 

[euler1977]

I will sell my 59-81 for 2 cents and then i can buy some ASE uncirculated.

 

[ArkieBassMan]

I have an offer to buy virtually unlimited presorted 82s (minus wheats, canadians, odds, foreigns, etc) for 2 cents each. You guys think considering the labor and time its worth it?

If you decide to buy some copper to stash, have a look on ebay and you'll likely find a better price. I haven't looked lately, but would be surprised if you couldn't find plenty in the 1.5 cents each range or even a tad bit better.

 

[D1MES_101]

i don't think its worth my time to buy copper cents OR to even sort the coppers! i just sort through 8 boxes of dimes in 30 minutes and find 1 oz of silver (28 dollars)

Dude you can get more money with silver! Copper is an industrial metal - not much of a precious metal. Sorry.

 

[sheepdog_tx]

Copper is an industrial metal - not much of a precious metal. Sorry.

Peak copper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

...more than 95% of all copper ever mined and smelted has been extracted since 1900...only a tiny fraction of these reserves is economically viable, given present-day prices and technologies. Various estimates of existing copper reserves available for mining vary from 25 years to 60 years, depending on core assumptions such as the growth rate. As India and China race to catch up with the West, the copper supply chain is becoming more strained, leading to increased prices....Total world production is about 15 million tons per year. Copper demand is increasing by more than 575,000 tons annually and accelerating. Based on 2006 figures for per capita consumption..calculate that by 2100 global demand for copper will outstrip the amount extractable from the ground.

 

[jrf30]

At 2 cents per "penny" it is too high. Although I'm not trying to get you to buy from me, I'll tell you my prices so you can compare.

I sell my pennies for 1.6 cents per penny, plus shipping. I can ship $75 in a large flat rate box, so even after the person pays shipping it is WELL below 2 cents per penny. ($74 X 1.6 + $15.45 = $135.45 / 7500 = 1.8 cents per NET) If you want to buy pennies, you should be able to get them for about where i am at price-wise, and might even find someone at 1.5 cents per penny instead of my 1.6 cents. But don't buy them at 2 cents.

I have about 840,000 in the garage right now (Almost 3 tons in weight), so I'm pretty much "unlimited" probably fo ryou too. :-)

 

[jrf30]

8 boxes of dimes in 30 minutes? One every 4 minutes?

Obviously edge seaching only. Slow down some, and I bet you find a few more dimes in the rolls. Near the sides of the roll sometimes get by if you edge search fast. Just a thought form someone who's done a few rolls here and there ...

 

[canaboy123]

Pointless unless the melt ban is lifted which i dont see happing in the next 10-15 years,sure you can sell 100 face for 150 but the entire hassle i can make more searching rolls.

 

[sheepdog_tx]

Pointless unless the melt ban is lifted which i dont see happing in the next 10-15 years,sure you can sell 100 face for 150 but the entire hassle i can make more searching rolls.

I'm sure thats that most said in 64 when the notice went out that coins were going to be made out off base metals soon. Even if you bought X dollars in face value in 1964 it would nto only beat inflation today just colllecting dust but you'd have a salt profit to boot. With that said I'm probably not going to buy any and just get a cheap coin comparitor off ebay for my own counting. Point being is most consider penny or nickel is near its melt value just as it was in the 60s when no one thought better. Foresight to stock and hold some physical coinage worth its material I feel is a worthwhile investment for those with children if not for melt value then for later collector value as zinc slowly moves out of fad for steel or even total removal from the system.

 

[stefen]

If you're really interested in spending good money on coins, start purchasing coins that have actual collector value...

 

[Bobbypins]

I've sorted about 500 lbs from circulation, and have bought wayyyy more than that. When copper was a lot higher, 1.5x face was reasonable. However, I typically buy $100 face of copper cents for less than $140, and that's SHIPPED. You just have to know where to look.

Paying 2x face for copper cents is WAY too high in my opinion.

 

[mishra142]

PM sent

 

[thripp]

You can buy them for under 1.6 cents each including wheats on Ebay in $100 lots including shipping, 2 cents each is ridiculous.

 

[TimZim]

I would never sort another penny. I have about 200 lbs and would love to get 1 1/2 cents each.

 

[maine_Jim]

I had a quite a few boxes of copper from when I started crh hunting again. I did find a few errors and a couple 2000 wide AM cents. I kept the errors and ended up dumping the copper in a free sorter. Used the cash to buy extra boxes of halves. Faster return on the money as one box with 10 90% would be more than I would make on the copper cents sitting in storage for years.

Maine_jim

 

[sheepdog_tx]

After consulting with you guys I talked him down to 1.5 cents on the coin (wheats and odds like canadians 99%s included).