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 Replies: 36 / Views: 4,662 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
+1 for Sap
ProfLiz: Theoretically you are correct about adding pure element to alloyed metal to raise the karat and adding alloys to gold to lower the karat. The problem with this is the working properties of different alloys. Some alloys are suited more for casting, others for milling, depending on your project. Some alloys for white gold allow a whiter finish making rhodium plating unnecessary (!). But no one will tell you their secret recipe because why give out your R&D for free and open yourself up to cutthroat competition. So in theory you are right about the purity/karat in relation to refining, but trying to use coin alloys and mixing them with gold to work with is a stupid idea, as you'll run into lots of problems such as metal cracking, not taking a good polish, etc.
In closing, when people say pennies are made of copper, I correct them by saying, no, pennies CONTAIN copper. They are usually either bronze or brass. Kind of like how alcoholic drinks contain alcohol but not pure alcohol, that would be crazy.
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Moderator
 Australia
16857 Posts |
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It surprises me that no has mentioned that it is a federal offense to melt cents or nickels. No scrap metal dealer in their right minds would let you cash in cents as scrap.
Check out above. I believe Sap did mention it in BOLD.Yes, I did. I underlined it, too.  Quote:
I doubt I could get a hot enough fire to melt mine. Would be cool though. Slightly cooler, yes. Coinage bronze - which, being a copper-zinc alloy is technically a brass rather than a bronze - melts at a slightly lower temperature than pure copper: 1070 deg C, rather than 1100 deg C. It's got to be a nice reducing flame, though, because copper readily oxidizes at those temperatures. However, it should be pointed out that (a) melting your copper coins into a big ugly ball of brass will not be free; it will cost you fuel, electricity or whatever, which will eat into your profits, and (b) honest, law-abiding scrap metal merchants are particularly wary of people coming into their shop with melted slabs of an alloy that just happens to match coinage alloy. They will probably ask you awkward questions about where the metal came from and may well refuse to accept it if they suspect you've illegally melted coins. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8518 Posts |
Dang, I guess I could always tile my floor.
Oregon coin geek.....*** GO BEAVS ! ! ! ***
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2049 Posts |
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With a purchasing power that declines at about 3% per year. Hold them for three years and you have in real terms lost 10%. Ok then put the money where? Stocks? No...those can go to zero or become penny stocks ironically. Cash in the bank? No...that would have the same effect you just described? PM's? Maybe...but they can fluctuate all over the place and you could lose alot more than 10%. Collectible coins? Maybe...but with any collectible you have to match a buyer and a seller. That's not always easy to do and often times an item can go unsold for years or end up being sold for a loss. Quote:
Inflation is the "real" reason not to hoard cents. Apparently you do not understand the concept of intrinsic value. If inflation hits, and the metal values go up like they have in the past, the value of the cents goes up with it. Although the market is limited for these, there are still people that buy them. Heck, one of the guys working at my LCS wants to buy my hoard of copper cents and yes at a premium. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3049 Posts |
If I were to "invest" in anything right now.. just where I'm at (which may be completely different than you and your circumstances) but low cost ETF's that follow a strong index like the S & P 500 is exactly what I do right now.
On that note I should mention that I do in fact have a small hoard of 40-80 boxes of pennies.... but I honestly don't look at them as an investment of any sort. Winters here are very long and I think eventually once I finish my home renovations I will have a small desk and place that I can look through coins ... so that was my cheapest version of "fun" for me
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1512 Posts |
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Apparently you do not understand the concept of intrinsic value. If inflation hits, and the metal values go up like they have in the past, the value of the cents goes up with it. Although the market is limited for these, there are still people that buy them. Heck, one of the guys working at my LCS wants to buy my hoard of copper cents and yes at a premium. Oh, I understand intrinsic value well enough; it's why I collect/invest in Precious metals, which, by the way, copper is not. I think you may be lacking a basic understanding of investing though. The number one lesson to learn, I believe, is: the past is not indicative of the future. So for instance, your statement above indicating a correlation between inflation and metal prices doesn't necessarily hold true for the future. Also, your comment about where else to put the funds, you mention not putting the money into stocks because they could "go to zero". Well, I am sorry to tell you, if you have such an aversion to risk that you won't invest in the stock market, you definitely should not be invested in commodities like precious metals, they are an even more risky asset class, in my opinion. Anyways, I don't want to start a pissing match.  Oh, and can I have the number for the guy at your LCS?  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
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Unfortunately, we do not yet have the technology to wave a magic wand over a piece of alloyed metal and hey-presto separate the components out into two neat little piles of pure metal at no cost and with no material losses Sure we do-  just get an electron microscope and pluck out all the zinc atoms with a pair of microscopic tweezers. It can take a while, but it's worth it. |
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Moderator
Australia
16857 Posts |
There are, approximately, 1.43x10^21 zinc atoms in a cent. That's about as many stars as there are in 1/10th of the entire visible universe. Plucking one atom out every second, it would take about 45 trillion years. Leaving an electron microscope powered up for that long would leave quite a hefty power bill.  Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
Making it a perfectly viable option- to remove the zinc from a roll of coppers, you would only need about 2.25 quadrillion years. Sorry if I sounded serious, I was joking. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
You can just make the future generations of your family carry on your work, and then the 90 trillionth guy can sell the copper for melt.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
The best way to collect copper is in electrical wire form.
The copper is pure, and it needs to be for electrical conductance.
No refining costs, it just gets recycled if you on-sell your hoard.
Very fortunate if you can hoard copper in this form, because most copper wire is recycled in huge industrial quantities.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
You can remove a lot of the zinc simply by melting the cents down. Zinc boils at a lower temperature than copper melts. just melting down the cents will boil off a lot of the zinc. Raising the temperature from there will boil off even more. You won't be able to get rid of all the zinc that way but you should get rid of most of it.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1512 Posts |
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There are, approximately, 1.43x10^21 zinc atoms in a cent. That's about as many stars as there are in 1/10th of the entire visible universe. Plucking one atom out every second, it would take about 45 trillion years. Just like they do in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, I would rather just put 1 copper cent into my bank account and let the magic of compounding do it's magic. Let's see... 1 cent... 0.01% compounded annually...for 45 trillion years...  carry the one...equals...My Calculator Broke! But, after ONLY 7,006,074 years the balance in my account would be a WHOPPING $1.80E+302. If I remember science class, that is a 1.8 with 302 zeros behind it! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8518 Posts |
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Plucking one atom out every second, it would take about 45 trillion years. Get two pluckers and you can cut that time in half ... Oregon coin geek.....*** GO BEAVS ! ! ! ***
Edited by 52Raymo
06/03/2015 6:24 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1795 Posts |
I save the wheaties when I find them and thats basically all except for errors which I will save tool
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Replies: 36 / Views: 4,662 |
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Posted 05/29/2015 8:00 pm
