Are You Hoarding Copper Pennies? Poll

I have no problem with anyone collecting anything that interests them. That's the beauty of coin / bullion collecting. There's just so many different ways we can go with it that everyone can find something that satisfies them.

I pick through what I get in change and sort into an old soap container with a hefty handle. The wheats get sorted and put somewhere else and the 82 and later cents go into the crap jar that will eventually be rolled and traded in.

Nickels on the other hand, I roll search. I keep all of the nickels, and they have their own sorting system in place. I am assembling 2004 and later rolls, and the rest go into a jug. I figure that on the bare minimum, a nickel will always be worth 5 cents. I am not paying any money for them, because I still have the money that I can spend at anytime by converting back into paper.

On the upside, if nickel and copper are debased and the government puts some other crap in there instead. I now have a coin with two expensive metals.

I look at it as an investment for my kids. Even if a nickel is always just worth a 5 cents, it is still worth it. Especially when they come across some BU nickels that could be worth a small fortune.

Josh

How can you say there is a point to save them and make a profit when it is illegal to melt them or send them overseas to be melted?

I imagine there are people doing that. I just don't know how easy it is for someone to sell the melted copper though. I imagine there are federal agents on the look out for that.

Also, hoarding is the main reason why so many billions are minted each year at a large loss, since they don't circulate.

I think once they stop making both nickels and pennies the law will change just like it did for silver coins. You don't have to melt just like the current silver isn't in many cases. In current form can be measured and bought and sold just like the 90percent silver

I don't see the prohibition against melting cents as an impediment to hoarding them. Just think of all the silver and gold coins that sell every day at many times their face value without any thought being given to their being melted.

I keep the pre-1982 pennies and wheaties I find and plan to get a few rolls of nickel's. I think it's the same thing as the silver coins from the 1960's. Lots of people wish they had pulled them out of change, bought a few rolls etc. I have an old metal ammo box that I'm going to store the nickel rolls in. Might buy a few pennie rolls and store too.

I work at a financial institution and can buy raw bags of pennies/nickels from our counting machine. Runs about 20 percent copper still. I have a little machine on my desk that I hand feed them, dump the zincs back on Monday, bags go out on Tuesday, and get more bags when I run out. I know I could just buy $200 nickel bags and toss them in the garage but I'm too OCD to do it easy. LOL