Copper Collectors?

I believe it is up to you if you want to keep the copper pennies however if you believe, like most, that the US dollar will continue its slide and ultimately crash then the hierarchy of precious metals for coins becomes gold, silver and then copper! We are saving the copper but it is up to you.

I mean you have people stealing copper wire out of abandoned housing for the scrap value. Look at it this way, if the dollar does crash you have some copper to barter with if it does not crash you still have one penny for each penny you saved. So, as my wife says, if you have the room why not save them.

What he(misboats) said. Think about it like this. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are paper with nothing of value backing them. Paper can become worth nothing. Gold, silver and copper are always worth something. In fact, typically, as FRNs decrease, precious metals increase. That's why they are such a good place to store wealth.

Right now, $100.00 of copper pennies is worth $222.37.

Matt

I used to actively buy boxes from the bank to mine the copper cents out of there. The wheat cents, occasional Indian Head cents, and foreign coins were a bonus. After awhile though, these do get heavy and bulky. I still pull the copper cents out of my pocket change, and from time to time will buy a box to sort through, but nowhere near what I was doing before.

Still, the above points made by others are spot on (no pun intended). If inflation occurs as the dollar weakens, then the intrinsic value of the copper cents will go up. If inflation never gets outof control, or we experience deflation, then the copper cents still are worth what you paid for them - one cent. So it's a win-win situation in a way with hedges against both inflation and deflation. :)

Here's another way to think of it. If inflation does run rampant as some predict, others may start doing the copper hoarding that a few do now. And some make an analogy back to 1965 when the US Mint switched from 90% silver coins to clad coins, and the silver ones were snatched up. If you could go back in time and gather all the silver coins you could at face value, you would do this right? Well some think/predict that copper cents will be worth 5-10x face value in the future, so getting them now at face is a huge advantage over those that don't see where the dollar may be headed.

Just curious...why dont you want to weigh the 82's? Out of box of $25 face, I typically get about 90 cents from 1982, and out of those usually about 70-75 end up being the copper ones, so rougly 75-80% of my 1982's are the copper variety. You may be missing out on alot of copper cents if your percentages are similar to mine for 1982's. :)

I actually dont care either way to be honest. The US minted cent is a widely recognized coin with a known copper purity content. I would rather hoard and trade a known commodity versus something that may have been made into a copper ingot by an unknown person.

I don't have a scale and I am too cheap to buy one
John1

I just sold $75 in copper cents to a guy for $100 on craigslist. I know they are worth more but hey I got a free $25 out of the deal. I still have more. I keep them because if they do lift the melt ban everyone is gonna start to melt these coins making the ones I keep rare. so if you keep them they are always worth 1¢. if the dollar fails they are worth more. if they let you melt them they are worth more. if copper keeps going up they are worth more.

I've always looked at coin roll hunting as buying a lottery ticket in which you cant lose. (unless of course you get shorted a penny or 2. and they are all zincs).... you are guarenteed to get you money back plus you might find copper, wheat or indian head pennies!