Copper Hoarding

$400 hand sorted. And we have stopped minting them this year. Will be gone from circulation in a couple years I am guessing. I collect both US and CDN copper.

I'm not roll hunting but I do find myself guilty of swapping out higher denominations for pennies in the take a penny/leave a penny bins and honor system change jars just to look through the copper and dump the rest into the jar of pennies that my grandfather gives as gifts to great nieces and nephews.

I currently have $4 in copper rolls.

I just started this spring, and there are two additional reasons that make it worthwhile for me.

1.) It's a hobby that doesn't cost me anything--and I don't spend hundreds of dollars doing something else like skiing, bowling, etc. I work on it while I watch t.v. or while I am chatting with one of my daughters, or just keeping an eye on my granddaughter.

2.) It has created some great family time. One of my adult daughters will sit and talk with me while we look for silver dimes. The copper sorting is set up so that my 3 yr. old granddaughter and my 7 yr. old daughter can help, and they have a blast.

I'll get anywhere from 1 to 3 boxes of pennies about every two weeks--whatever the bank has--when I pick up a box or two of dimes. I bought a coin comparator off ebay for $35, set a styrofoam ice "chest" on its side, cut slots on the top, carved out the shape of the comparator, and I set the comparator on top of the slots. I bent 2 old cards (like credit cards) in half longways to make chutes and stuck them up into the slots from underneath, and put two gallon milk jugs under the chutes which fit perfectly (I cut away the tops of them, but left the handles intact.) The girls have a blast feeding pennies into the comparator, and yell "Copper!" whenever one falls into the copper jug.

Another time, we will flip all the copper coins over, looking for wheaties to sort out, and they'll get so excited when they find one and yell "Wheatie!" I dump the copper coins back into one of the boxes, label it, and tape it up when one is full.

Some day I'll look through them (at least the wheaties) and see if there is anything numismatically worth more than the metal content.

The zinc cents I take to the coinstar at the grocery store, get a gift card for something I would buy anyway, and avoid any fees. The grocery store is considering joining the program, so then I'll just get one of their cards, get groceries, pay for the balance with my debit card, and get cash back for the amount of the coins I took in. Right next door is the bank, so I go in there with cash/bills to buy whatever coins they have, or write a check for cash for the amount I put on a non-grocery card, like a Sears gift card, etc.

So, no extra gas spent if I do this when I have to go to the store or bank anyway, no re-rolling tons of pennies, no paying coinstar fees, and something to do at home with the kiddos. Back in February, copper was up so each cent was worth 3 cents. So, I figure one box of $25 face value of copper cents could be worth $75 sometimes, and because I will always have the face value at least, it's worth will never drop below the amount of money I put into it. I know I'm not counting my time, but because of the reasons above, I don't consider it time lost anymore than if I was playing cards, watching t.v., collecting stamps, or baking cookies with the kiddos.

If you have the storage space, the means to leave the money sitting around and not have to use it for debts etc., and a little bit of extra time, copper cent hoarding is viable and may be a nice investment for you or your kids future. At this point, you never know what you may gain from it.

I've got almost $300 worth, but I love looking for varieties as well as sorting the old copper ones out. I used to turn them back in but now I hang on to them all because you never know when some new variety will make itself known and I'll need a stash to dig through to look for it!

Hand sorted $1400 face value over 6 month period. I sold entire lot for $1800 to local guy. Seems very hard to sell them, as he was only person to respond. I have access to over $2000 unsorted pennies per month, and average 30% copper. Will continue to sort as I do it while listening to TV. If I am ambitious, I can do about $500 worth a week, and get $150 in copper.
I was happy with the $400 profit, which is about 30% return. It takes me about 1 1/2 hour per $50 bag, so I know per hour, that is really low pay.

wow I cant believe how much some of you have saved, I probably have only 5-6 dollars worth. maybe I will start trying harder...

The shipping is added on to the sale price and people pay it. You can stuff 70 pounds in a box from the post office. Check out ebay for copper penny sales.