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 Replies: 22 / Views: 1,397 |
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Valued Member
United States
246 Posts |
An interesting calculation that I ran the other day, by my calculations it is worth saving copper pennies for metal value, and spending zinc pennies, because you would be loosing money saving the zinc ones.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
76558 Posts |
Complete waste of time. Calculate the time spent throwing each copper cent into a bag, finding a dealer who will actually pay you 2 cents each, driving to the store (don't forget gas costs both ways), and waiting while he weighs them. Say it takes you 2 years and you accumulate 5,000 copper cents, or $50 face. The dealer gives you $100. This makes any sense?  Edited by Coinfrog
01/04/2023 08:49 am
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Valued Member
United States
246 Posts |
Makes sense, I see your perspective; of which I agree (the more that I think about it, the dumber it sounds  ). I wasn't trying to annoy anyone, was just something that I thought of that might be interesting. I would be better off looking for varieties, errors, and key dates in the Pennies and selling those.  Thanks for correcting me, makes 100% complete sense.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
49422 Posts |
Not to mention it is still not legal to melt U.S. cent in the U.S. John1 ( I'm no pro, it's just my humble opinion )
Searched 6.5 +/- Million Cents Since 1971
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4282 Posts |
Maybe some day in our lifetime they'll lift the melt ban. Who knows?
When I listen to LED ZEPPELIN...so do my neighbors...
Roll hunting since '77
Dirt fishing since '72
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
11321 Posts |
At one point several years ago I had over 200 lbs of common, circulated copper cents. Two years ago I rolled them up and cashed them in at my bank.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
4696 Posts |
The problem is that there is no simple, cheap, legal way to get close to the value of the copper even once they are separated. The same is true of the Canadian one cent coins which were mostly copper until 1996. I have about 60 kilograms of copper 1 cent coins (About $200 face value) just sitting around as dead weight gathering dust. I don't need the money or the space so I am prepared to sit on them for a while, but it is really just entertainment rather than an investment.
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Valued Member
Canada
93 Posts |
How about a curve ball. Pre 81 Canadian nickels have .18 cents of nickel in them (canadian money)
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Valued Member
Canada
66 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2739 Posts |
An interesting idea, but you'd do better hoarding copper wire.
"Two minutes ago I would have sold my chances for a tired dime." Fred Astaire
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Pillar of the Community
United States
904 Posts |
Is copper separate from pennies worth scrapping? yes. https://queleparece-com.ngontinh24....deral-metals1 cent right now (.01) has a melt value of $0.0248337 which is 248.33% metal value of face value. Most penny hoarders are stockpiling their currency in the hopes that the law will change and allow them to finally cash in on their stockpiles. If you happen to have access to or come across pre-82 copper cents such as you like to search for errors and varieties,key dates, plus many older coins may have some numismatic value if one were to take time to investigate them. It does have added value to hold onto them vs just bringing them to the bank, but as mentioned it can be a bit of work to sell them sometimes and not cost effective to ship them, cant melt them right now directly, and the value add is not huge so putting a lot of time into the finding of them by itself is not worthwhile unless again you have a different reason such as searching for varieties, errors and key dates. https://queleparece-com.ngontinh24....ent-strategyAccording to the online melt calculators out there, There are 6.5136 pounds of copper and 0.3428 pounds of zinc in $10 face value of copper cent(s). Total melt value is $24.83. Copper Price: $3.7412 / pound. Zinc Price:$1.3585 / pound A roll of copper cent(s) has 50 coins and is valued at $1.24 when copper is at $3.7412 / lb and zinc at $1.3585 / lb (exact value is $1.2417120398822). For the later 1982+ zinc coins. There are 5.3738 pounds of zinc and 0.1378 pounds of copper in $10 face value of zinc cent(s). Total melt value of the base metals is only $7.82, less than face value. Zinc Price: $1.3585 / pound Copper Price: $3.7412 / pound A roll of zinc cent(s) has 50 coins and is valued at $0.39 when zinc is at $1.3585 / lb and copper at $3.7412 / lb (exact value is $0.39078796089836). |
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Moderator
Australia
15088 Posts |
Quote:
According to the online melt calculators out there, There are 6.5136 pounds of copper and 0.3428 pounds of zinc in $10 face value of copper cent(s). Total melt value is $24.83. Copper Price: $3.7412 / pound. Zinc Price:$1.3585 / pound The problem that these online base-metal-value calculators don't tell you about, is that we haven't yet invented a magic black box that you can pour coins into, that separates out the copper and zinc into neat little piles of 99.9% pure metal for zero or near-zero cost. You need to refine the pennies to obtain useful copper. Refining copper out of scrap brass is normally done by acid digestion - shred the scrap metal into powder, then toss it in hydrochloric acid. The zinc dissolves, the copper doesn't. Drain out the acid and collect the solid residue left behind as a slurry. You can then feed the slurry into a copper smelter. You can recover the zinc from the waste acid, but the small amount of zinc in a copper penny is going to be too much trouble to refine separately - so a refiner would probably throw that away as industrial waste, and concentrate on recovering as much copper as possible. The zinc therefore has a negative value, not a positive. Alternatively, the metal refiner might theoretically hold stockpiles of scrap pennies, awaiting an order for brass so they can simply melt the coins and toss in some extra zinc to bring the alloy up to 30% zinc, or whatever the customer's target is. But frankly, it's easier (and cheaper) to make brass by starting with pure metals. And meanwhile, the refiner is "paying" by needing to store those scrap pennies somewhere on-site. So while there might theoretically be 2.43 cents worth of metal in a cent, a scrap metal merchant isn't going to be offering anywhere near that much. They'll pay you the 2.3 cents for the copper, minus the cost of removing and throwing away the zinc. Maybe 1.5 cents total at most? I'd reckon you'd be lucky to find someone offering more than face value for it.
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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Moderator
United States
122690 Posts |
I keep all my 95% copper cents to prevent them from being melted, either illegally now or legally in some undetermined future.  |
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Valued Member
United States
119 Posts |
Reminds me of my rain barrels. I'll struggle for 2 weeks to fill one up (about 60 gallons) hauling dish rinse water and water from waiting for shower to heat up. Saves about 50 cents.
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Valued Member
United States
102 Posts |
I know it is against the law to melt them but what if you did and were able to separate the metals?
1. What is the penalty?
2. If you were successful in separating the metal, how would anyone know it came from pennies?
I know when I take my aluminum cans to "respectable" scrap yard they require an ID.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
505 Posts |
I don't think it is illegal to melt a US coin just to sell the melted metal for profit
I know same effect but it covers people who make jewelry from coins and the like
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Replies: 22 / Views: 1,397 |
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Posted 01/03/2023 11:24 pm
