How many are stocking up on old pennies?

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  • warhawk77

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    A old penny is worth almost $0.025 each so that is what a 250% increase in investment. I know you can't melt them down but at some point we will be able to.

    Anyone got any ideas of what to do with copper? I thought about bullets but don't think that would work to well.
     

    XtremeVel

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    If I see a wheatie, I keep it. Other than that, I don't sort... Heck, I'm not even sure... Is it 82 and prior, or is it prior to 82 ?

    I have always saved my nickels though.. With them, there is no sorting... They all are 70% copper and 30% nickel... With the exception of the few years in 40's where they were partial silver...
     
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    warhawk77

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    It is 1981 and older.

    I found two jars in out closet that are full of old pennies so that got me thinking about keeping some just in case.

    I didn't think about nickles but that is a good idea
     

    XtremeVel

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    It is 1981 and older.

    I found two jars in out closet that are full of old pennies so that got me thinking about keeping some just in case.

    I didn't think about nickles but that is a good idea

    Yea, if they are already sorted, I'd keep em.

    If only us older ones only thought about saving our dimes, quarters, and halves back in mid to late 60's... I didn't start collecting coins till probably early 70's. I still remember only paying 10 cents on the dollar premium for common date silver. I also remember well friends thinking I was nuts for doing that.
     

    XtremeVel

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    Save nickels, not pennies. Nickels are approx. 75% copper and 25% nickel, even the new ones. This gives them a greater amount of copper in a smaller space, collected easier. WAY more bang for the buck. But I now see XtremeVel beat me to it:)

    Might have beat you to it, but you had the composition right.... I had to look, don't know why I was thinking it was 70 / 30 %.
     
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    Furthermore, if Congress follows through on plans to change nickels over to steel instead of actual nickle the value of pre-steel nickles will be far greater. That, and the fact that you don't have to look for dates on nickles, makes them a better investment than pennies.
     

    warhawk77

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    To me the penny has more bang for the buck.

    1 penny $0.01 has $0.0248 in copper
    5 nickel $0.05 has $0.0556 in copper/nickel

    So 5 pennies would be $0.124 in copper.

    5 pennies might weight more then the nickel and would take up a little more room.

    I got the info from Current Melt Value Of Coins - How Much Is Your Coin Worth?

    If the price of nickel goes up then the value of nickels will go up but not sure if people are stocking up on nickel. I know the do gold and silver, not sure if any are stocking up on copper.
     

    XtremeVel

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    To me the penny has more bang for the buck.

    1 penny $0.01 has $0.0248 in copper
    5 nickel $0.05 has $0.0556 in copper/nickel

    So 5 pennies would be $0.124 in copper.

    5 pennies might weight more then the nickel and would take up a little more room.

    I got the info from Current Melt Value Of Coins - How Much Is Your Coin Worth?

    If the price of nickel goes up then the value of nickels will go up but not sure if people are stocking up on nickel. I know the do gold and silver, not sure if any are stocking up on copper.


    That would be true if you are only counting the older pennies you took the time to pluck out.

    If you go to the bank on a weekly basis and asked for $5.00 worth of pennies and the same $ 5.00 in nickels, after you kick out the vast majority of the worthless, plated pennies, you'd have much more bang for your buck in the nickels.... Every nickel you'd get would have a significant amount of copper in it.
     

    CountryBoy19

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    Here's the way I look at it.

    Copper pennies (part of '82 and older) are currently at 249% of face.

    Nickels are 111% of face.

    Financially speaking, it's much better return to do pennies IMHO. Yes, you have to sort them, but how hard is it to sort them at the end of the day when you take them out of your pocket? Not that hard... I do it... I have 2 jars, one for pre-82 pennies and 1 for all my other change... at the end of the day I take them out of my pocket and look at the date on the pennies... pretty easy...

    As a matter of preparedness, the monetary value of the metal composition is irrelevant. If you're saving these things for SHTF, they will have very limited value except to be utilized for their material properties (ie. used to make things). So consider their use before you choose what to save.

    In my case, nickel has very limited use, while copper has a lot of uses. In SHTF how are you going to un-alloy the copper & nickel found in nickels so you can utilize the copper? You likely aren't. So consider those types of things before saving up on certain coins based upon how easy it is to sort them, or their overall financial value. There are many more things that come into play that just those criteria.

    For me, pennies are much more useful, so I don't mind doing the sorting...
     

    CountryBoy19

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    Every nickel you'd get would have a significant amount of copper in it.
    How will that copper be utilized? Are we talking strictly financially? Or actually utilizing the metal? Can it still be utilized with the nickel alloyed in? Or will you have to separate the 2 metals somehow? That process may be a chemical process and rather complicated & costly...


    Just some food for thought:

    Nickel: 3.75 g of copper & 1.25 g of nickel

    Penny: 3.11 g of copper

    If you're using this metal for X purpose and you need copper, you're paying $0.05 for 3.75 g of copper, or $0.01 for 3.11 g of copper. If your process can use the cuper-nickel alloy of the nickel, you're still paying $0.01 per g of metal.

    The only time the nickel comes out on top for "survival preparedness" is if you actually desire to have the nickel. If you're looking for the copper, pennies win every time, even if you have to sort them... who doesn't sit down and watch a little tv or do something else that they could sort pennies while doing? It's pretty easy to sort pennies... '81 & earlier go in jar x, '83 & later go in jar y. And if you so desire, '82 goes in a special jar to weight out at a later time or just sit on them.
     

    shibumiseeker

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    near Bedford on a whole lot of land.
    My "sit down and do something mindless while doing something else mindless" time is usually devoted to priming or sorting brass :)

    FWIW, I have way, way more copper stashed in junk wire and pipe than I ever do in pennies, and scrap brass WILL be my retirement fund.

    If someone wants to do it, more power to them, but over a lifetime of sorting pennies one may get a few hundred dollars over the cash value, it's just not worth it to me. I don't particularly find it relaxing or enjoyable, so it can't even be a hobby for me that sorta pays a return, however small.

    None of this should be taken as me knocking those who do, just an explanation of why I don't.
     

    XtremeVel

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    How will that copper be utilized? Are we talking strictly financially? Or actually utilizing the metal? .

    Wasn't neccesarilly talking about either. Was just addressing the opening question. I took "stocking up " as meaning he was starting out and wanting to build up some metals, possibly in quick order. Knowing the nickel could very well be living on borrowed time as the construction as we know it today, it still , IMO, would be the fastest way to accumulate the metals.

    Now, I fully agree with all the advantages you stated with the penny. I would especially agree if the person had a way to " recycle " what would be the vast majority of the worthless pennies. I just don't find many banks quite as friendly anymore about taking in pennies as you sort and letting you walk out with more to unroll and sort.

    If we are talking more about simply saving what we find in pocket change, I would recommend in saving both.
     

    CountryBoy19

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    FWIW, I have way, way more copper stashed in junk wire and pipe than I ever do in pennies, and scrap brass WILL be my retirement fund.

    Also very good sources of copper...

    If someone wants to do it, more power to them, but over a lifetime of sorting pennies one may get a few hundred dollars over the cash value, it's just not worth it to me.

    Touche... just as a personal anecdote from me, back in my college days, when I needed to do mindless things and couldn't exactly sit around priming brass in the Fraternity house, I would sort through the change collection cups we had sitting around for various charity events, replacing everything I took with an equivalent amount of less-desirable change. I found many a silver coin in those cups and tons of pre 82 pennies... I would say over my 2 years of doing that, and my years since then I've amassed about 100 pounds of pre 82 pennies. That comes out to about $145 face, or about $365 worth of copper. It's not a be-all, end-all metal stock-pile, but it will definitely help...

    Also worth mentioning is that certain shapes of copper material work better at making certain items from said copper. IE, pennies are already conveniently in a round disk shape, and will take far less processing to forge them thinner, then draw them out into bullet jackets. If you want to look at it that way, I have 15k partially formed bullet jackets that may come in handy some day.

    ETA, wow, I've sorted 15,000 pennies over the last several years... those small mindless sorting events really added up to quite the quantity.

    BTW, my 100 lb figure is an estimate based upon the fact that I cannot currently weigh said penny stockpile.
     
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    Now wait a minute, didn't you post a few day ago that you didn't have enough rounds to make a pile of bullets? :dunno: or was that just rifle rounds?



    Boating trip?


    On topic .... I doubt you would get the return on these coins unless you did actually melt them down and seperate the metals. Ill have to look whats involved in that but i have a feeling it is chemical and not so much once melted the metal will go there seperate ways.
     

    Sylvain

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    Now wait a minute, didn't you post a few day ago that you didn't have enough rounds to make a pile of bullets? :dunno: or was that just rifle rounds?

    I said that im stocking up on lead, but I didn't talk about ammo, I may stock up on pure bars of lead alone. ;)


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