Copper, Silver, And Everything In Between

Remember if you save pre 1982 for melt there a few things to know besides it is illeagle to melt them in the USA.

1. the spot price is for newly smelted copper of .999 or better

2. Recyclers will not pay spot or even spot minus % they buy old copper pure as #1 or #2 (#1 would be heavy gauge bare wire 12ga or higher)#2 is copper tube and sheet.

3.Pre 1982 copper cents are only 95% copper so they would be bought as bronze, not copper.

As someone who has dealt rather extensivly with scrap metals my advice is do not hold your breath on them every being saleable scrap metal in the USA in your life time.

For those of you who know a guy buying them, sell him all you can!

You may do better holding them for 4 or 5 decades to sell them for 2 cents each at the LCS.


3.

I occasionally get a couple boxes of cents and root through them for the pre-82's and a few other things. The last couple boxes I also pulled out the 2009's as well as a few dozen Canadian's and a couple other foreign coins. I also pull these from change and find a couple each week.

I have a few thousand pre-82's LMC's saved, they really don't deter from savings or take up a lot of room. I have a couple lamps that the wife made from Mason jars to put little sewing notions and other cute crap into that have been converted to bronze cent holders.

If I set them aside and forget about them for a couple decades they might be an interesting thing to go through in my retirement. I don't ever intend to melt them and eventually the government will get smart and stop making the Cent like Canada did and then I will likely save a few boxes of Zincolns as well.

The problem is how to keep them nice once you have them.

By me Electricians gather Copper and even Aluminum Wire and cable for taking to metal recycling places. They also throw in Copper Coins, Copper plumbing fittings taken from redo sites. The metal recycling places will take anything metal with no questions asked. And most can't speak English so wouldn't know how or what to ask. Someone I know is an Auto Mechanic and when he too takes metal to those places, he throws in all the Copper pennies he has gathered too.
Such laws are sometimes funny since there is really no Copper Police. Metal recycling places could care less what the metal is or was.
As to your question. Yes you should save as many as you can. If for no other reason except to stop those like I've mentioned above.

I save bronze pre-1982 cents, post-1982 Zincolns (because Zincolns are still worth more than face value) and I save all U.S. nickels for their copper/nickel content. When me and my mother go to 7 Eleven, I always ask the clerk for two nickels back in change, instead of one dime, when my mom buys a slurpee for $1.90. I think that the nickels are almost more worth it then the copper cents, seeing as you have to sort pre and post-1982s, while, with the nickel, you know you are always getting the same metals (unless you stumble across silver War Nickels) I also ask my 7 Eleven clerk friend, to hoard all Canadian cents, regardless of what they are made of, since Canada quit making cents, pre-2000 copper/ nickel, and pre 1986 nickel nickels, and pre-2000 nickel dimes, quarters, and if he ever happens to get any, pre-2000 nickel halves, and pre-2012 loonies and toonies if for some reason, he gets them.

Speaking of copper coins though, does anyone here think people will start hoarding the current coins if the government decides to either, eliminate cents, or make them out of steel, and make the nickel, dime and quarter, and possibly the half and dollar coins out of cheaper metals? (I sometimes see mentions in articles about changing the metals in the half to a cheaper metal, but mostly they just mention the cent, nickel, dime and quarter, and sometimes they mention the end of the cent, and I have never really read anything that I can remember about them changing the metals in the dollar coins)

If they do change our U.S. coins to plated steel, I plan to start hoarding all copper clad coins I come across in circulation. (I wonder if history will repeat itself with the half, if the change the cent, nickel, dime and quarter ti a cheaper metal composition, and leave the same, more expensive metals in the half)

Ah, thanks for the info, jbuck. But if you are not making a profit off melting Zincolns, and actually "losing" money, then, why is melting them illegal? Am I miussing something here?

Anyway, copper, bronze or whatever, I think that the government shoud declare the pre-1982 cents obsolete, and let people melt them like silver coins, or cash them in at scrap yards for their content, and also, any Zincolns that are rotted beyond recognition should be fair game for scrapping as well.

One more thing, would you make a profit off melting down nickels? (Not that I plan on doing it. I'm not breaking the law)

The price of nickel and copper is not high enough to make any real money melting coins in the quantities collectors like us are likely to have them. Once you have paid for the smelter to perform the service or buy the equipment needed to melt, separate and assay the metals you have eaten through your potential profit.

The law that prohibits the melt of cents and nickels really is intended toward industrial smelting that would have the potential to profit from the melting of coins since they already have the capability to do so. Remember that even if the materials were free it would still cost over a cent to make a cent.

The reason Zinc cents are included is probably to stop indiscriminate melting of all cents. Industrial concerns would be able to separate the metals more easily than "normals" would. It also protects against an increase on the value of zinc, should it rise to the level to make melting of coins profitable.

The only way I see this law being rescinded is by the elimination of cent production by the Mint, either in the dollar/half dollar mode where they just stop making circulation strikes and keep making collector sets only, or by the total elimination of the coin like Canada did. Either way they would remain legal tender (as they are in Canada now) but would dry up pretty quickly as people save what they have and the banks turn in their stocks for metal recovery.

I was in Canada the summer after the cent ceased production and while some stores had a few on hand since they had been used in a purchase, no one was giving them out in change and no one was asking for them (except me).

When you guys (USA) get rid of the cent, be ready for grumpy uneducated cashiers that "can't" take them even though they've never been demonetized. Last year when I still had pennies to spend, cashiers would spout off lies like this when I tried to keep them from rounding up to the nearest 5 cents. If I still had pennies to spend I would - I used to carry around all of my pennies and use them when it was to my advantage. I also carry on my smartphone copies of federal laws to show the uneducated should it come to that.