Who Says Don't Hoard Copper Cents?

Hey! Jbuck, you found that old thread I was looking for! I believe that second link was what I was talkin about. Thanks!

Another thing I have, in the back of my head, is that whenever I have kids, it will be nice to have a bunch of rolls of circulated coins for them to search through, should they be interested in coins. I kinda doubt there will be as many "old coins" in circulation 10 or 20 years from now. So, while technically I'm saving copper cents because they are copper, I don't really plan on selling them (even for 2 cents each) anytime soon.

My dad always said "Man I wish I would've kept that" or "I wish I had taken better care of this" or "I wish I never let my 'friend' drive my '67 Camaro." So I take that as advice, therefore I'm going to keep some things, take care of some things, and NOT let my 'friend' drive MY '94 Camaro.

Sorry, I'm digressing a bit, but there's a good point in there somewhere.

Oh wow...spell-check highlighted Camaro and the first recommendation was 'Camry'!

From 1964 to 1971 it was illegal to melt silver coins so I imagine everyone who hoarded all those silver coins out of circulation were pretty foolish too weren't they?

A) You won't get spot when you sell it
True but who pays spot for silver or gold?

B) You'll have to pay a fee for melting
Not true. You don't pay a melting fee for silver of gold when you sell it do you? That has been figured into the price the smelter pays. You would only pay a melting fee if you are having them melted and then returned to you.


C) You will likely have to spend money to hire a truck or large pickup to transport them to the melting place.
Possibly. So hire a large truck and buy up everyone elses cents at a small discount so you can haul in a BIG load and make money that way.

D) You would need to hoard a lot of them to really make any kind of money on a net basis after all your expenses.
Maybe, see above. It also depends on how quickly copper goes up. The chart above shows roughly a 100% incrase in the past year. What else has show a 100% per annum return on investment this year?

E) Who knows how long it will take before it is actually legal to melt them!
Just means more time to hoard even more of them.


Consider this. During the time period when melting silver coins was illegal the premium of the metal value over face was a fraction of the face value. If you had waited until the metal value of the silver coins was twice that of the face value (Which is where the copper is today) you would have started your hoarding around 1971 to 1972 by which time 98% of the silver had already been pulled out of circulation. Today the copper value is twice face, and only 25% of the cents in circulation are still copper and dropping. If you wait until the premium is "significant" and it is worthwhile to hoard them, you may find that most of the copper cents are already gone.

Great post Conder!

been hording copper from box searches for over a year. I have saved 5 big Pickle jugs worth. Wife thinks I'm a tard but I just keep telling her to wait. One of these days my efforts on one of these coin things will work out.

I would like to sell mine at that price. Who is buying?

I'm a copper hoarder and then some.LOL Why even think about melting? I personally I don't have a safe way to melt anything but cheese and butter at my home anyway.LOL These pre 82(junk copper) will sell/trade just as nice as do junk silver does bagged/rolled up. The mining costs for copper,gold,silver is not going to get any cheaper and will drive these prices up. Go by a spool of real copper wire(not plated)you will see. Most wire now is copper plated aluminum.