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 Replies: 23 / Views: 3,906 |
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New Member
United States
0 Posts |
Hello people  I just joined this forum and looking forward to a happy and enlightening relationship with all of you. Now- Why are copper pennies (pre 1982) worth collecting when you can't melt them or easily sell them as copper bullion?! Moved by Forum Mom from Welcome forum to Modern US coins forum. |
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Forum Mom
 United States
5877 Posts |
Welcome to our Coin Community family!  Many of our members do not look at the Welcome forum, so I moved your question to the appropriate forum for better exposure. We have a lot of Lincoln collectors here. I'm sure they will be chiming in with answers to your question soon. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10635 Posts |
Well, if the law forbidding melting them is lifted, which is a realistic possibility, a lot of people are going to cash in. Copper pennies are fairly easy to find now in circulation but may not be in the future if demand keeps rising. Les  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
764 Posts |
the price of copper, as well as the price of silver/gold, is going to gradually go up over long periods of time, not because they are getting more and more valuable, but because of inflation. you can spend them or sell them now and make X amount of money, or hold onto them for so many years and make more. however, over those years, the extra money you'll make is meaningless because the dollar will be worth less. the metal market fluctuates but generally stays stable. in the early 2000s, precious metals were low. now they are high. but long-term (tens to hundreds of years), they have had the about the same purchasing power. for example, today you could sell a silver dollar for 30-some dollars and maybe fill your gas tank. go back to 1920, and you could sell your silver dollar for a dollar, and maybe fill your gas tank. my free advice for metal hoarders: base metals such as copper and nickel are valued lower than usual right now, so if you want to stockpile tons of metal, hold onto it until the economy picks up. the price will go up once industrial demand is up. precious metals like silver and gold are overpriced and will go down. these should only be short term investments right now. so if you have lots of junk silver and gold, consider selling them soon. a good formula to use to determine whether these metals are over/under priced is: silver: CPI/15 or gold 3*CPI. CPI is the consumer price index which is about 225 right now. it goes up by about 3% each year. so the average price of silver over long periods of time is about $15/oz in todays dollars, and gold is about $675/oz. obviously, the two metals are worth much more than that right now. ok thats enough for my 4am rant. time for bed  |
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Valued Member
United States
417 Posts |
Welcome. At the last coin show we were at one dealer was buying them for 75 cents per roll.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19930 Posts |
Welcome to CC! I just sold $50FV for $81 on ebay. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
3039 Posts |
to CCf. You will get conflicting opinions on a number of topics but generally good advice from the members.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
 United States
12809 Posts |
They don't take up all that much space, really, unless you have as much as this guy to offload: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-millions-...em2eb7a67a26I would say, yes, they're worth keeping and you'll be able to make some money on them if you work at it. We're not talking retirement money, but still. Pull the better specimens out for collection(s) and just keep the rest in a big glass container somewhere. Heck, maybe you could even use them to trade with a dealer or someone else to fill in a hole somewhere. They are, after all, worth at the very least a penny. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1903 Posts |
If you were to go through and reroll all your copper cents ( which would be a very inefficient thing to do ) and put them back in the bank box they came in, one ton (2000 pounds) of cents would only take up 2 foot x 1.5 foot x 2.5 foot of space. Based on roughly 154 copper cents per pound you would have $3080 face value. At current real ebay sales figures it seems that you can expect 1.6 x face right now. So a realistic realized price right now would be $4928, or just shy of $1850 profit. With bank accounts offering .2% APR right now, why would you not do business in copper cents. Even if you get nit-picky about the cost of doing business you can easily realize a 20% net profit PER TURN of your money. There is not an angle you can look at selling copper cents that doesn't make sense. Even if you just want to go extreme and say hoard back $100,000 face of cents, it would only take up 7 foot x 3 foot x 11 foot in space, a volume the could easily be fit into a GROUND LEVEL closet... Or look at it this way, if copper or other base metal values increase in value based on the inflation rate ( which right now is heading toward 4% ) copper will have the same buying power today, tomorrow or twenty years from now. Take that same money and put it in your local bank and you are LOSING 3.8% per year in buying power ( based on a 4% inflation rate). You do the math....even breaking even is better than losing 3.8% a year Edited by unholyroller
09/06/2011 11:20 am
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Valued Member
United States
466 Posts |
unholy roller pretty much turned me into a hoarder with that little post right there hahaha
I might just start saving some of mine, and everyone is right, they don't take up that much space
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Lots of different ways to look at hoarding. For one thing if the price of Copper goes down, you have a pile of Copper coins still worth one cent each. If you just want to melt it down to blocks of Copper, you'll need the equipment to do that and the price of that will negotiate little profit. If you have a metal smelter near you that melts anything metal, regardless of such laws, you could take them there and get a fraction of what they are worth. And you may end up with your photo taken by the Fed's. If you simply put that same amount of money in a bank, stocks, bonds, etc. you should make a profit of some type. And then have to pay taxes on that profit. If you hoard Copper Cents for about 20 to 40 years and pass away, it's to late to wonder what you should have, could have, might have done with that money. When you get old you start thinking of things like that. Young people think they will live forever. I like to think of collecting coins for fun. Hoarding for a tomorrow that may never come to me is way to late. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1903 Posts |
Justcarl, one thing I was pointing out is short term hoarding then selling them on ebay. Making a 20% return on your money in the SHORT term makes a lot of sense in today's economy. Lets say you turn your money once very other month ( which is totally realistic ) and say you start with say $500 face of copper cents. So lets say you sell them at 1.6x face, but after fees and "sweat equity" only realize 20% profit. You now have $600 to reinvest. Second go around $600 turns into $720 Third turns into $864 Fourth....$1036 Fifth....$1244 Sixth....$1492 or lets just round up to $1500 You started the year with $500 and at years end have $1500....show me any bank account that bears that sort of return and all along you still have your face value. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6326 Posts |
I believe that Mr. Oceanwhisperer is not aware of his topic move. I think he may have just noticed it "disappear" and didn't come back ? ...  When I was still "green" here....I was lost & confused when this happened to me a couple times, till I finally figured out what happened ! It's all simple and old hat when you've been there done that......not-so-much when you're a greenhorn. Try having a topic moved to the "secret place" when you're still "new" ! ......  Maybe a "reach out" from someone might bring him back ? Just some comments from a concerned citizen......  |
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Moderator
United States
187582 Posts |
He was automatically sent an e-mail when the topic was moved. The e-mail contains a link to the thread. Good to see you again, Eaglefoot!  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3345 Posts |
Quote:
Why are copper pennies (pre 1982) worth collecting when you can't melt them or easily sell them as copper bullion?! Here's what 90 people think. Welcome dude. https://goccf.com/t/90882 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1007 Posts |
I think people around here are hoarding them. I see very few pre 1982 cents in change anymore. But since it's been 30 years since they were minted, how many wheat cents did you find in change in 1988, 30 years after they stopped minting them? Hardly any.
Might as well find a can and hoard them yourself. There's always room for some extra coins.
And welcome to the forum.
Edited by matchbox
09/12/2011 10:04 pm
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Replies: 23 / Views: 3,906 |
Posted 09/03/2011 12:11 am
