Is Keeping Copper Pennies Worth It?

For the cost of 1 cent from circulation,it could be fun to see what is still floating around :)

I like Jbuck's thoughts on the matter. It's a good excuse to keep them. Like the rest of you, I don't see them gaining much value any time soon. However, sooner or later they'll stop minting cents and it will be legal to melt them. At that point everyone will start melting their hoards, and the remaining copper cents may acquire the status of wheats, where people are willing to pay a small premium. Those are my thoughts.
For now I'll keep stashing them away- however, I've only searched $54 worth of cents, so my hoard only consists of about 19 rolls worth. If I get too many to keep, I can dump them for some quick cash and get myself something nice. If/when the mint stops producing cents, I'll keep them just because I probably won't be able to get any more.

I echo Jbuck and numisma!

Almost a 2 year has passed from the last post, do you feel any change of mind now?

Not much has really changed in the past two years, but I did get another pile of copper Memorials from my wife's aunt a few months ago; so my pile is getting a little bigger. I don't know the weight, but I paid Auntie about $60 cash for the cents.

She also gifted me her departed brother's Wheat cent folders: all holes except the '09-s VDB, 1914-D, 1914-S, and 1915-S are full. I just need the "Big One" ('09) for my original personal set, so now I'm close to filling two sets.

Thanks for the advise!

I keep a stash of duplicate copper cents so that when I go to the USA I can squash them in Penny Press machines if I see a design I like, or want a numismatic souvenir of a particular attraction. The pre-1982 copper pennies roll much better than the zinc ones, and if you elongate a zinc penny it comes out all streaky and gets worse with time.