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 Replies: 35 / Views: 6,038 |
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Valued Member
United States
364 Posts |
I got to agree with bigfredd on this one. This is only worthwhile at each end of the spectrum. I pull out the copper when roll searching, and once I hit $50 to $100 or so, I sell them. Not much profit, but I don't have to dump them which is nice. Because margins are so low, you have to sell lots of product to be viable. So, to use $81 per 5000 as an example, consider this. Good boxes yield about 25% copper, so to get 5000 copper pennies you have to search about $200 worth of pennies (8 boxes). Leaving out ebay fees, shipping costs and overhead, 8 boxes of pennies makes you $31 dollars. To make just $2000, you would have to sort 516 boxes or over $12000 worth of pennies. This also assumes a buyer for all your product... |
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Valued Member
United States
421 Posts |
Ok I have gone and sorted my 3 small piggy banks of pre-82 pennies. I now have a jar for those ones. It only took like 15 minutes or so but I think I have like 200+ pennies just from what I already had.
Oh and my fingers are dirty now. LOL
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Pillar of the Community
United States
632 Posts |
Hoarding copper is a side benifet to looking for wheats, variety and error cents. I have accumilated about $900 in copper cents. I wont sell them on ebay because ebay's fees are to high. A local person contacted me about selling, but I wont sell in case copper happens to go up. But if I needed that money I would sell locally to avoid getting taken advantage of by ebay. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
The lower the barriers to entry, the more competition you get.
Remember tanning beds? Shell out a grand for a bed or two, and you're on your way to becoming a tanning tycoon. Only problem is, so are six other people on your block.
It doesn't take much skill to pull copper cents. A pair of buckets and a $10 scale, and you're in biz!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
659 Posts |
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Valued Member
United States
333 Posts |
What bigfred said. It is all about lower barriers to entry.
Look at it this way, when people were hoarding the silver from change in the later half of the 60's, they were basically doing what penny hoarders are doing now. They were getting stuff cheaper than melt.
However, if they didn't immediately sell and move on, they had to sit on their money until the Hunt Brothers came along.
But what if they didn't sell at the top then? Then they had to hold onto their silver longer, up until the last few years to really make it worth while.
The opportunity cost of that move is the huge returns in the stock market in the 80's and 90's.
Heck, even from 65/67 to 79, that's more than a decade. Those years they could have parked their money in something else!
I'm not saying don't diversify. By all means, hoard some copper pennies, but don't hold onto them forever. There will be better business opportunities if making a buck is what you are concerned about.
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Valued Member
United States
146 Posts |
My questions on this process are: Do you sell them by weight? Or by value (i.e. 25, 50 dollars worth of cents)? I've also wondered if those that sell them go to the painstaking process of re-wrapping the coins or just sell them loosely?
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
They are prolly sold loose, by count. Once refiners enter the picture, that will change to weight.
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Valued Member
United States
66 Posts |
Here in southern Ky I average approx 7-15 copper cents per roll.
I have no plans to sell them anytime soon--just another "Variety" to pull when searching.
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Valued Member
United States
297 Posts |
I had to go and buy a gallon jug of Carlo Rossi wine to get a bottle to put my coppers in a few weeks ago. I hadn't drunk that stuff since high school. And the price has doubled in the last 15 years  So far I have 20lbs from casually sorting over the last few years. I guess I better step my game up if I want to compete with the pros. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
548 Posts |
Quote:
I had to go and buy a gallon jug of Carlo Rossi wine to get a bottle to put my coppers in a few weeks ago. I hadn't drunk that stuff since high school. And the price has doubled in the last 15 years So far I have 20lbs from casually sorting over the last few years. I guess I better step my game up if I want to compete with the pros.  Funny, as I was thinking something similar. But with whisky.  |
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
cd-
you're better off using plastic or metal containers. A gallon jug is designed to hold 8# of liquid, not #65 of metal, as many have found out when they lift one and the bottom stays put. Cleaning broken glass from a pile of coins is no fun at all.
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Valued Member
United States
257 Posts |
I would like to stress what biggfredd said. I personally became a victim of this when someone with an old 5G water jug half full of change asked me to help lift it.
Bottom dropped out on my foot. Luckily had boots on and there was minimal damage (to me).
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New Member
United States
21 Posts |
That is the reason I keep them in empty boxes of Chivas Edited by BgCollector
12/13/2011 01:16 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
927 Posts |
Phillies Blunt boxes work quite well for storing them also. I have obtained a small collection of these.
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Posted 12/05/2011 07:04 am
