Those Dang Lincoln Cents

I have no problem scraping copper, I have taken thousands of dollars in at a time (I am an electrical contractor) I have watched the price of copper go up considerably for the last 5 or so years. My quotes from wholesale houses are good for 24 hours, it just shows the volatility of copper.

I do not have a crystal ball (wish I did) but I would speculate that copper will continue to rise over the next 10-20 years. How much, I have no ideal, ROI (return on investment), don't know either, will it outperform the stock market, do not know that either. Will taking the 1000+ dollars in cents to the bank and investing it outperform the rise in copper over the next 20 years payoff, don't know but I am willing to store what I have and roll the dice.

Look at what copper is used for, data cabling (even though wireless is growing, it is still not secure enough to not have stuff hardwired) computers, anything electrical, water pipes, and so on. I have heard rumors on why copper has shot up so much in the last 5 year, everything from China hoarding it, strikes at the mines, there are many more. I feel eventually copper will become more scarce than what it is now and the prices will rise even more, we will see.

Look at a copper chart(http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/c....html#5years), in the last 5 years it has gone from less than a dollar a pound to almost four dollars a pound, that is an 300% ROI in 5 years, has your mutual fund outperformed that?

Just my 2 cents, sorry for rambling on!

I thought that I would weigh in on the discussion about hoarding copper cents as I do have an opinion about it. One of the most prolific and knowledgeable contributors to this forum and a true expert on the subject is "coppercoins" and I would bow to his expertise if he disagrees with anything that I have to say, after all it is just an opinion, and I'm here to learn also. So here goes.

The key to the value of any commodity, renewable or otherwise, is generally governed by the laws of supply and demand. Hoarding does not permanently raise the value of said commodity, it only causes a temporary rise that lasts until such time as the "hoarder" decides to release some of it back into the market or more of the commodity is produced, at which time the value will decline. When discussing copper pennies specifically it is important to keep one thing in mind. They are not a renewable resource. There are a finite number of them in existence at any given time and there will NEVER be any more of them. This changes the equation only slightly. The true value of them is going to depend on how mush that finite number declines. The real issue from my perspective and the question that seems to come up most often is "Is it worth my time and effort to sort them out and hold onto them." That, in my opinion, has to be a personal decision based on factors too numerous to deal with here such as "What is my time worth?." I happen to be retired, so obviously my time is not nearly worth as much as someone in the work a day world with other mouths to feed or someone engaged in writing the next great novel. Heck, my time probably isn't worth as much as someone pondering their navel lint. However, here are some thoughts to consider.

At the time of this post, the base metal value of a copper cent is approaching 2 cents if it hasn't already gotten there. It's a no brainer that you can double your money if you pull out of circulation every one that you come across. But that begs the question: "How do I realize that profit without melting them down?" The simple answer, for the time being, is that YOU CAN'T. Is it even legal to do so? That's a gray area. For those of you who want to wade through the legalese and try to interpret it, it's covered under Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States Code. There are those that believe that it's legal and those that don't, depending on their interpretation. I don't think that there is any case law to support either view. Rest assured though, that if the value goes to 5 cents it will be tested. However, there is some precedent concerning silver speculation. (Witness the silver dollar meltdown in the early part of the twentieth century)

Rumors are abundant that the government is contemplating pulling them out of circulation. I'm not even going to go there. We all know that the feds are capable of doing just about anything whether it makes sense or not. Suffice it to say that they have the ability, the means, and the capacity to do it, and the supply, in circulation at least, would dry up in short order. It's also reasonable to assume that they would continue to pull them out from then on. That would suck up any that previous "hoarders" either accidentally or intentionally placed back into circulation. In short, if they ever got to a bank, they would be gone. The upside to this scenario, as unlikely as it is, would be that anyone sitting on rolls of them would then realize a PERMANENT increase in the value of their stash rather than the temporary one I mentioned earlier because the FINITE number of them had actually been reduced. Bottom line is that it's a personal decision what to do with them. At best it may end up being a wise decision to hang on to them, and at worst you have a minuscule savings account that will never be worth less than what you put into it monetarily.

I routinely roll search boxes of cents. (See my previous post "boxes & boxes") I currently have 20,000 of them yet to be looked at. Do I save copper cents? Yes I do. I intend to put together a couple of roll sets for posterity. What I will do with the excess, I haven't decided yet.

Webster describes a "hobby" as "a spare time interest, esp. one taken up just for pleasure." The cool thing about OUR hobby is that it transcends that simple definition in that we can realize a substantial profit or gain in worth by having a keen eye, attention to detail, an understanding of the particulars, and the wisdom that comes from experience. Whether we take that profit for ourselves or pass it on to a future generation matters little. What matters most is that we enjoy.







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It certainly was, And made me think that the copper premium might just get the government to grab them all up. All they need is the right study, at the right time. What a nightmare, so they probably will. Figure this forum will be swamped. Gotta get more pennies. And learn to sort my can of '82s. And resort for those, whats you call em? 70's.(s.d.)

When I see there is 2.4 cents worth of copper in each cent (as of last week), it seems to me like it is a better investment than the stock market, percentagewise.

I hate touching them, as it seems like all the crud in the world collects on them, and they get all goooooey and grimy. When I went to inventory my husband's collection, I had no idea I would ever get drawn into it. But I did. Not only into collecting, but into cents. I thought higher values would be much nicer, but I found myself drawn to these cents. And soon I was looking for varieties, and next thing ya know, I had purchased a couple of spendy books about varieties, and now I find myself looking and looking.

I had a couple of boxes of cents to return to the bank after extracting the older dates, but the bug bit so hard I had to unroll them again and check through them based on the info I found in the books. The rate I'm going I'll never get these coins back to the bank, as I keep finding more and more things to look for.

So I voted that it is worth my time. Since I'm retired and don't punch a time clock, my time is worth whatever I want to spend it on, and currently it's looking for cent varieties. Then I'll keep the coppers, return the others, and one day double my investment. Not too bad - a pleasant hobby and return on my investment. Nice.

I love searching rolls of pennies, especially at work. It's always nice to find beautiful red, AU coppers and still some with some bits of luster left (and the occasional Canadian cent; today it was a 1940). Plus, there have been some real nice, bright red 80s zinc cents popping up. I prefer to keep those instead of the less snazzy ones...you never know, they may catch a premium some day (here's to hoping!).

Oh, yes. A hundred for a dollar? What a deal!

Edit: Forgive my unknowingness, but zinc cents are toxic? Where was I when this was going on?

I don't spend any change that I get, I just throw it in a bucket when I get back to the house. I keep my cents seperate from my clad coinage, and after a few years, or when I have time, I will go through my bucket, and go cash it in for a 7 or 800 dollar payload. I do not ever cash in my pennies. I have been figuring for a few years that eventually they are going to stop making them, and when they do, my grandkids, or great-grandkids can maybe get into the hobby, the same way I started.

I've go through times when I hate these zincs and how disgustingly dirty they are, but hey it's addictive!

I voted "bring 'em on because it's my second favorite denomination. And my first favorite is halves, especially walking l's.