How Long Before The Copper Cent Runs Dry?

I tend to agree with sel.

The wildcard could be the melt ban. However, I believe that the ban is irrelevant and lifting it will not add a significant number of sorters to the game (changing the current attrition rate).

It's closer to 10 to 1 for me. Those darn 1982 large date copper cents are a pain. They made BILLIONS of them!

Billymac is right.

I posted about that very thing here: https://goccf.com/t/132036

:D

I can't speak for US cents, but in Canada they still circulate even after the last mintage early this year. We'll see how that turns out. If the US pumps out trillions more cents the copper will certainly be rarer by population (of coinage) alone. Even without a melt ban, the copper penny is more liquid in its present form, as you need pounds of them to be profitable. Copper is just too common to be worth anything of significant value. And I shake my head at those "investing" in copper bullion, whatever that means.

When/if the US defaults on its debts, the speed in which pennies disappear will pick up tremendously.

Hi -- pennysaver from Canada here.

I was just talking to my banker on Friday and mentioned that we'd probably be seeing fewer and fewer pennies in circulation in the near future. She said that in the banking biz there is no talk of pulling pennies from circulation -- until the entire retail industry starts pricing (and figuring in the tax) in such a way that prices will always end up in multiples of 5 cents, there will always be pennies in circulation. She hasn't heard of any policy or program to pull them at all. And as for pulling copper, our government hasn't yet found it profitable enough to have the banks sort, pull, and ship the coppers away to be melted down to bullion again. She seemed to be knowledgable enough, so I thought I'd throw in that 2 cents worth. We'll see how it goes, though.

I agree with sel that there is no way of determining when copper will be hard to find. I disagree that limited numbers will cause us to quit looking for them. Everything will be driven by the copper value. If copper goes up quickly, copper will disappear quickly. When that happens and copper becomes limited, it will be a result of the value. And most of us will search for and save a copper penny that is worth 10 cents, no matter how scarce they become.

It won't be exactly the same but I believe copper coins will ultimately follow a similar path to other metals that have risen in value above face value. In 10, 20, 30 years, people will be roll searching cents and excited when they find 10 or 20 in a box.

OO

I just don't think there are enough people pulling copper cents to seriously affect the % right now. The biggest affect on the % available will likely be the new coin that is released every year. Now, I know some of you will argue you're already seeing a reduction in %. That's probably because you are being affected by one of the few commercial copper cent removals. That will cause regional changes but I don't think it be a big affect over all...right now.

I know that many people have stated that the legalization of melting cents won't affect things but I believe that the one thing that could cause a quick and drastic reduction would be a combination of legalization and copper prices high enough to encourage heavy commercial removal. Imagine Coinstar sorting copper.

OO