Copper Pennies - Buy Or Sort?

It depends on your budget, honestly.
Copper has been removed from pennies for quite some time, but the copper cents seem to be easily acquired.

One thing to consider is the weight. You can accumulate 30.00 in pennies, which will weigh in at 10 pounds ( 3 copper rolls equals 1 pound - to be exact, its 144 pennies) . You can then turn that around and buy one ounce of silver and get rid of sixty rolls of coins and replace it with one coin like a silver dollar thats an ounce of silver.

The biggest concern will be storage. With 3 rolls of copper pennies equal to one pound, and if your looking to have hundreds of rolls, you need a place to store them, and in containers that are easy to handle, like the ABA style plastic boxes.

"The long run" is a phrase that is undetermined, a never ending statement. With any collectible, It depends on the amount of funds placed into the investment, How many years you want to hold onto the precious metal, and what your expected return on investment is for that period of time. You'd have to look at the historical price of copper over the last few decades to see if the return on investment will satisfy the time, effort, handling and storage requirements.

All it takes to accumulate copper is to go to a bank and OCCASIONALLY ask for a $25.00 penny box. Pull the copper cents out of the rolls and then re-roll the non-copper cents and return them to the same bank. if you don't abuse the system, the bank will work with you. Speak with a senior bank teller and tell them what you wish to do, and ask them if they can order a few extra boxes of pennies every few weeks for you. That way both you and the bank are on talking terms and you know what to do to keep that channel open. Too many visits and you will be looking at the same rolls you just looked at.

Ultimately the choice is yours, but boils down to several simple things listed above.

In My opinion, buying may be a way to do it, but it takes away from the bottom line. In this scenario, it boils down to time. If a person is retired or likes to mess around with coins, and occasionally search the cents and pull out varieties and errors, it may be an additional money maker.

Buying copper bullion may be the way to go if you have investment capital, but the person will have to buy it at spot and pay a premium on that as well, if it comes from a distributor. I am sure there are rare cases you can buy a precious metal without paying spot plus a fee. Paying a fee above spot will affect your bottom line over time, and the erson may not make enough off copper bullion this way.

Again, in this scenario, if you have the time to do the sort and return, your only costs will be time to sort through the cents, and whatever is associated with the trips to/from the bank.
The sort and return, its like you are paying yourself to accumulate copper. You don't have minimums to meet, postage to pay, or spot+ premiums.

Yes, it will take some time to do. It depends on how much profit you'd like to see over a decade or so. Should the individual have the mentality of seeing copper as a potential sleeper like a penny stock, then it boils down to how much investment funds they want to dump into the project.

Opinions are cool, we all have them. Since the original poster didn't give us his vision we can only assume what his overall situation is.

All great points! Definitely think sorting isn't worth the time it would take. Storage is more about use of the space, efficiency-wise, no? What about buying a ton and using it as a table or something of the like. As long as it is insured and in a sturdy container, no harm done.

My vision is buying anything under it's obvious value is a no brainer if there's no hurry to cash out. I mean if you buy something where you'd break even with a 50% loss in copper value, that's pretty darn good. Of course, there's the melt laws, but is that really something to consider when thinking about asset protection in the long haul with cash you're not looking to spend anytime soon?

Can't imagine a $25 box here and there being worth anyones' time. Just curious about what others think as, like you said, opinions are good and valued to share.

Why would copper bullion be better than copper pennies though if time is not a factor in consideration to the melt law? Look at the Canadian copper cent. Value skyrocketed and the melt law is still there.

Pulling them as you come across them is a way to go. Seems like a lot of effort to go CRH just for copper bullion.

I don't think it is a very good idea.

I've told this story before but I know of a guy who has $250,000 in face copper pennies. He got one of those sorting machines and gets thousand of dollars from the bank a week. He stacks them in the bed room, after he wraps them and puts them in penny boxes. The floor is starting to groan as just about every wall has been bricked in with penny boxes. I guess if he ever has a drive by he will probably be okay though. Sure he now has half a millon in copper if he can ever melt it. But the ammount of time and effort put into the project is staggering. He would probably be better off investing that money instead of having it in pennies.

Buying them is a waste if you just want the copper. Pure copper is going to be what industry wants not pennies they can't melt.

I agree if you like sorting pennies and enjoy it by all means pull them and sell them when you get enough.

At some point the bottoms going to fall out of that secondary market for copper pennies and more people realize they will never be legal to melt.

If they are melted it's going to be done by the government to make the money. They have absolutely nothing to gain and a lot to lose legalizing their melting. It's as close to a sure bet there is in politics that they won't be allowing other people to melt them profiting off their loss and making them lose even more replacing them.

Aside from just liking them and wanting them the only advantage is for an end of the world prepper who can get the copper cheaper than buying it. Copper in general just isn't good for investment purposes. The price is to low and would have to rise past where it could to make it worth it. You'd have to own massive amounts with its small price swings and if it gets too expensive then another material will replace it for most things aside from moonshine stills and maybe some electronics. At 10 or 15 an ounce though copper pipes will be a thing of the past crashing the demand and eventually the price.

I sort through two $25 boxes a week on my day off. I started 2 months ago and now I have 36 lbs of copper pennies. I'm going long term here but if I decide to sell, I'll just sell the pennies a box at a time. We love buying junk silver . . . maybe junk copper will be in our future.