Copper Hoarding

I just starting sorting pennies. I am still under the $25 I suspect, but it is probably close. I don't know if it's worthwhile or not yet, but it doesn't hurt anything and I'm not losing money on it, so I do it.

I have about $300 worth

All I have is just a couple 5 gallon buckets full.

Copper is not silver

We stopped making copper pennies in the states sense 1982 as everyone knows, that means we are now 30 years sense this event has occuered. Copper cents are now worth about 2.2 cents in melt

We stopped making silver dimes in 1964. In 2004 (40 years after we stopped making silver dimes) the amount of silver in a dime was worth about 1.95 dollars, or 19.5 times it's face value

This goes to show that hoarding copper cents in the hopes that you will make lots of money off of it as if it were silver is probably a waste of time. In the long run copper will go up but probably not that much. If your coin roll hunting might as well because in 15 hours you might make a whole 5 dollars when you make 1.5 pennies off of a penny after you sell it, pay fees, shipping etc.

Your probably better off collecting soda cans from trash if you want to make more money as far as the time is considered if you are sorting by hands to make money. Buying a 500 dollar machine means less of a profit for you as it would take a LOT of pennies to make that much after you consider shipping and fees. By the time your copper pennies are actually worth something considerable over face value you will either be dead, the penny will no longer be minted, the numismatic value of the coin will surpass the copper value...

At least that is my take on it. Not worth it. You will not reap the benefits of it. 200 years from now it might be worth a lot in copper weight but you won't be around and the numisatic value would be more than melt value...

Well, that's what people said about silver. If not from the money supply, then where else would the average Joe easily acquire these metals? (Rhetorical) It might not seem worth it now but who knows what the future holds. However, PVC and polymers are taking over in piping right now because they need less servicing and replacement.

$1300 in copper hand sorted

I just save whatever I find from change and the occasional box of pennies that I look through. Once I hit $50 face I sell them on ebay. The premiums are much to low to just sort copper.