How Much To Pay For Pre-1982 Copper Pennies?

In my experience, it depends on how much you buy at once. I see people pay more than 3¢ per on ebay. However, I often see CTU's @ $145, so less than 1.5¢ ea @ 10000. Maybe if you find someone to do half a trade unit you could get them for 2¢ ea.

The mint produces most new cents to replace coins that are lost, destroyed, or abandoned in coin jars every year.

It would take a long time, however, for modern cents to be worth what low grade large cents are. It's not to say it won't happen, it's just to say that thousands upon thousands of millions (in other words, billions) of them would need to hit the melting pot before that day will come. And it will happen to, as soon as copper prices rise enough to make it worth people violating law and melting them down, they will. (I'd recommend waiting until Congress repeals the law, or melt them down in Canada or another country where Congress really has no say)

As for buying them, have you tried CRH? They're a great investment at that point. $50.00 in pre-82's suddenly become worth $100 copper (rounded a little bit).

with joe , if you buy them the shipping fees might be steep for only $50 worth of pennies , especially when you can pick up rolls during your normal daily routines and save yourself the hassle of shipping fees + since you are looking at this as an investment , I guess you are thinking long term -so you can also accumulate copper cents from your change and over time you would have a have a huge bunch of coppers at very little extra cost

Thanks for all the replies. The reason I ask is that someone locally is selling 5,000 coin bags of them for $80 and wanted to know if it was a good deal.
I've definitely thought about CRH, and feel like it would be really fun to comb through for errors and other awesome finds, but the amount of time I imagine it would consume always threw me off.