Is It Worthwhile To Hoard Copper Pennies?

You know it's serious when you need pallets with an s to store your hoard

This question comes up a lot. To be blunt: don't bother.

If there were any money to be made hoarding pennies then CoinStar, Wells Fargo etc would beat you to it.

Think about it. The banking system controls the flow of coinage. They could easily pull all the copper cents fom circulation and store them in their warehouse till the time comes.

They already have the technology, the labor force, the warehouses, etc etc. If it made economic sense to anyone they would have done it by now and there'd be nothing left for you to hoard.

BTW: Peak copper? 10x 100x on copper? I don't want to live in a world where copper hits those highs. People would burn your house down with you in it just to steal your pipes afterward!

@jeffbuckes Well, it's true that banks don't do it, but I would venture to say that it's for different reasons.

1. The biggest reason is opportunity cost in that this opportunity is likely way too small for them. They have bigger things to go after that will make them more money. But for an individual like me, it might still make sense. Just to use an example to illustrate this point, dinosaurs will not bother with a little worm, but chickens will expend the effort to find and eat the worm. Okay, you could argue chickens are dinosaurs (after millions of years), but you know :-)

2. There is definitely uncertainty involved in this enterprise, since we don't know when the US government will decommission pennies altogether, before which they cannot be sold after being melted down. When there is legal risk, banks and companies in general tend to shy away, unless of course the cost benefit analysis becomes back overwhelming in favor of taking the risk for a bigger return. And banks and companies have done that before, oftentimes getting into trouble.

3. There's really no storage cost to me. I just put them in the basement. If I ever do incur a cost, then I would have to rethink it. But in the meantime, I can't see there being a cost in the medium term.

4. 10x copper is actually not that inconceivable; the operative word is time. If you're looking at a longer time horizon, gold has gone from $65 an ounce in 1973 to $1,900 an ounce today, which is an almost 30x increase. But if copper were to 10x in a year, then yea, we may have bigger problems, most likely due to the dollar losing reserve currency status and hyperinflation.

5. Not too worried that people will steal my pennies. They would steal gold and silver, but pennies? No, they would need a crane to steal all of them, LOL!

Cheers!

Ultimately, it's your time. It seems to me like you like hoarding pennies, so go ahead and do it! Maybe you'll make a few bucks one day; maybe you'll grow sick of it. Makes no difference as long as you're having fun. At the same, trying to convince others it makes economic sense is probably not a productive use of your time.

Sorry, not trying to convince anyone to partake in my copper hoarding enterprise. Just trying to explain why I do it myself.

But so far, I have collected 8,449 copper pennies (not counting Wheat cents or foreigns). Should hopefully get to 9,000 by end of month.

Cheers!

AllSeasons - have you valued your labor in this process?

As a byproduct of your existing hobby (coin roll hunting) saving copper makes perfect sense. It doesn't scale well, but in your case I say have fun!

Just be sure to read all the other similar threads in this forum before you decide to save copper at a bigger scale.

A wonderful project for underachievers as my departed father would say .
When you add in your time ( ultimately a very valuable resource ) it is
a ridiculously funny thing to do .
Take the money you were going to put into hoarding pennies and
either buy some truly rare coins or find a safe dividend stock of
which there are plenty .