Copper Getting Harder To Find...

I don't really see what's the point of singling out the higher-grade copper cents, especially when you can still buy entire BU rolls of most dates for only $1 or so. I would think that only better dates like the 1969, 1971, and the "S" mints might be worth setting aside in nicer condition.

I really disagree with hockingzigs statement that the coppers are getting harder to find, I get at least 20 coppers per roll out here in North east pennsylvania.

Jeremymh, I am glad to hear that. I was simply making an observation of what I have noticed, I hope my experience is the exception, not the rule. I had great luck in eastern PA just last month, some of the best roll searching I have ever had so it may just be my location and the number of people in this small area roll searching.

I'm sure somebody has already mentioned this, but I was too lazy to skim through all the previous posts.

It seems like copper cents are becoming like silver halves. They're more predominant in certain areas. Some areas of the country are dry on silver, and other areas of the country people are getting rolls of franklins from the bank!

Where I am, finding copper cents is as easy as poking through the change you got back from buying your subway sandwhich. There is no shortage of pre-82's here.

I hoard copper and put away anything red pre 90.

I agree. Most of the zincs pre-2000 are awful. First, many of them were really poor strikes and the rest either have zinc showing through the copper or have big black and/or green splotches. I don't think they will last 10 years in any kind of shape except maybe in air-tites.

It comes down to many different factors, as we have read:
1. Location
2. Location
and
3. Location

I live in a smaller city (about 100,000 people) and there is only ONE coin store. The next closest is 2 hours one direction and 5 the other. So as you can tell, we do not have the biggest selection to choose from and if you do not use the Internet then you are screwed. My shop has had rolled coin offered once in the last three years and I ended up buying them all for $1.50 a piece. If they offered more then I would buy them, but they don't so I end up roll searching for a lot of my collection. When I go through I get every red cent I can find and keep almost everything pre-1982 that is problem free.

No one knows what the future will hold for these coins and if copper hoarding will be for not, but until then it is a very cheap thing to collect. Besides, if it was not worth doing then why are there companies out there collecting them and illegally melting them? If there are more companies/individuals doing this than we know then MAYBE the price of copper will eventually go up.

I think another part of it is like a fair amount of what our grandparents did in the great depression and held onto what ever they could. There are some of us also that feel the effects of the recession we are going through and want to have a little something to sit on. This last week I took in about $160 worth of cents and traded them in to leave town for the weekend and feel fortunate that I had that change sitting around to do so.

Everyone has there own reasons and my biggest one is that hopefully I can trade/sell them to other collectors and gain pieces to my own collection. Almost every day someone new is joining this forum and asking where and how to start and depending on their location it is tough to get certain coins. Just reading through some of the other posts amaze me of the generosity of the members here and how people just send off a coin to someone to help fill a hole and expect nothing in return, personally I hope that I can get to that point. Right now copper is not that much but if someone came onto the board saying they can not find common date 1950-1970's LMC's and I could find a dozen or so just sitting around and send them to that person how cool would that be.

Now I am starting to ramble, so I will just shut up and let someone educated have the floor again.