Opinion On This? Know Anything On This Nickel Bar?

By the way, I did the math for
http://www.copperbullioncoin.com/10...unce-rounds/

Copper price, as of 2012 05 24 at 8:31PM PST
$3.4747 Per ounce

They are selling 170 ounces of copper for $100

$3.4747 times 170 = Over $590

Does that mean I actually save $490?

All right. Thank you for helping me make my decesions.

copper is $3.4747 per pound not ounce

So Spider, after building your foundry and pouring your bars, do you feel differently about the prices being charged for copper bars? What would you sell yours for? Would that price adequately compensate you for the time, effort, energy, and equipment expense?

And I'm sure you realize that you can't call remelted scrap copper .997 unless you scrupulously trim off all soldered pipe connections, and pull out every scrap of brass or other materials.

I have made a few copper kilogram bars. I bought bar stock 2" wide by 1/2" thick and cut off 7" pieces, which weighed just over a kilo. So far so good. But you can't buy millstock like that for spot! Somebody had to roll it out etc. It was more like $10 / lb. So after I did all my work my bar came out pretty expensive and hardly anybody bought one, which is why I don't bother making them anymore.

Really, if you want to invest in copper you need to buy a pallet load of full-plate cathode sheets. They run about 300 pounds apiece and you can stack them nicely, and they're hard to steal.

Spider, can you show us pics of your bars?

I've got no place to store them.

That would require a lot of refinery costs.

No place to store them.... full cathode plate? Are you kidding? Just throw them on the ground! Anywhere... behind the garage, in the garden, next to the driveway... wherever! They'll be fine. Okay okay if you want to get fancy you can dump some used motor oil on pile and then throw some pieces of cardboard on it and let them get oily too... maybe some rocks or a piece of crappy plywood to hold the cardboard down. That would hold your stash for... oh... at least fifty years or so. Probably more in a covered dry spot.

Apartment dweller... uh... okay sorry. You kinda need a permanent home-base to invest in copper. Significant value in it is hard to transport.

England in the early 1700s, Mintmaster of the Tower Mint was a royal appointment. The mintmaster was paid a percentage of the monetary value of the coin he issued each year. From the mintmaster's percentage would come all the expenses and salaries of the mint. So think about the priorities of the mintmaster. He wants to see the most VALUE in coins go out the door as possible. So of course he will always be calling the crown for more gold to mint up. And lacking gold, he will gladly mint as much silver as you can bring him. But copper? Shudder at the thought. All that work for so little return! Gasp! All the mint report references I saw always referred to mintages in silver or gold in pounds or guineas, but copper coinages were referred to in tonnes. So many tonnes of copper coin sent in barrels etc.

And that was the origin of the small-coin shortage that struck the British Isles and resulted in the production of all those wonderful private-mint coins of that period.