Could the Iran conflict lift the melt ban?

[thecrazyone]

Will we maybe need copper for shells?

And if it were to happen, how would it work? Would you take them to banks? Drop off centers? Other?

[coppernickel]

Na, the people who initiated the melt ban are now out of office. No one in those offices cares about the history and reasons as to why the melt ban is in place and won't take any action to lift it.

I think we are a long way from a real war.

[fasteddy]

Lift the melt ban? no way. Anyway it sounds like your are referring to brass casing for artillery....I think most warfare now is dropped from the air....I don't know if brass is in those weapons or not....the first Iraqi invasion last about 6 weeks....I think the Iranians would last 8 weeks.

[thecrazyone]

My concern is the long term, as they are backed by Russia..

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

My concern is the long term, as they are backed by Russia..

Russia and China both have "Peace Treaties" with Iran. Anyone invading Iran will also have to deal with the Bear and the Panda. So that leaves us with the never-ending proxy wars.

Anyway hoarding copper pennies still makes sense to me. Right now #2 copper is about $1.82/ pound. One pound of 95% copper pennies (#2 copper) is about 145 cents. So the scrap-yard price of #2 copper will pay out an ROI of 125.517241% right now and will only get better as never ending war and the entire ef'fing world keeps going ever deeper into debt. How many billions per month is the FED pumping into our economy right now? With another pissing match to fight how much more national debt will get racked up? Is there a single politician left that cares?

[realhumancopper]

It may be a good play to hoard copper cents if you are young, say 35, have plenty of room to store them, don't plan on moving, and are willing to gamble that they wont all get oxidation. I started hoarding at 60, by 70 had way over a ton, got them to the bank and dumped them while I still knew someone young enough to help me get them to my truck. Glad they are gone. Also, couldn't find anyone who would give me 10% over face and pick them up................Finally, I have four Ryedales....they will make good doorstops.......hal

[Recyclersteve]

It may be a good play to hoard copper cents if you are young, say 35, have plenty of room to store them, don't plan on moving, and are willing to gamble that they wont all get oxidation. I started hoarding at 60, by 70 had way over a ton, got them to the bank and dumped them while I still knew someone young enough to help me get them to my truck. Glad they are gone. Also, couldn't find anyone who would give me 10% over face and pick them up................Finally, I have four Ryedales....they will make good doorstops.......hal

It is sad to read stories like this. Do you have something like silver or gold that you keep that isn't quite so heavy and that would be a lot easier to sell?

[GTOJohn]

It may be a good play to hoard copper cents if you are young, say 35, have plenty of room to store them, don't plan on moving, and are willing to gamble that they wont all get oxidation. I started hoarding at 60, by 70 had way over a ton, got them to the bank and dumped them while I still knew someone young enough to help me get them to my truck. Glad they are gone. Also, couldn't find anyone who would give me 10% over face and pick them up................Finally, I have four Ryedales....they will make good doorstops.......hal

You are not alone - growing older is one of the reasons I have been dumping mine at the bank. I have dumped about a ton in the last year. I plan on getting rid of more in 2020.
A few reasons I think of to dump them while ya can -- growing older makes handling tougher, there hasn't been a market for coppers in a few years (1.1 is not enough), I don't want to burden my wife after I'm gone, step-kids have no interest and I have no interest in giving coppers to them, what if more brick-mortar banks with coin counters close, put the money from the coppers into something else...….....…..

[AGgressive Metal]

The problem for "small" hordes of 1 ton is that its not enough to make a semi-truck route feasible.

[misteroman]

It may be a good play to hoard copper cents if you are young, say 35, have plenty of room to store them, don't plan on moving, and are willing to gamble that they wont all get oxidation. I started hoarding at 60, by 70 had way over a ton, got them to the bank and dumped them while I still knew someone young enough to help me get them to my truck. Glad they are gone. Also, couldn't find anyone who would give me 10% over face and pick them up................Finally, I have four Ryedales....they will make good doorstops.......hal

I've moved 3x with these dumb things lol. And we're talking 5+ tons......Last and final time(unless someone makes a nice offer on the house we just bought,waaaayyyyy underpaid for it) was 700 miles from ny to KY.
What a nightmare that was. I would sell if I could get 1.3ish but refuse to take back to the bank out of principle or maybe even spite lol.
I still even have 50-100 boxes from the banks in 2012-3 that I haven't even opened yet. At least the percentages are still pretty good!!!

[Morsecode]

IF I still had copper cents (I don't), and IF the spot price moved to 2.25+ I think I would have no problem ignoring the melt ban. In my opinion it is nothing more than an administrative order issued by a long ago administration, one which may never be officially redacted.

No one cares, unless you were dumb about it and posted your smelting online.

[silverflake]

I am out. The melt ban outlasted my patience. Around about late 2009 I figured out on my own that copper cents were worth more than their face value so I just started saving them from my change. Then I discovered this wonderful site and started getting the occasional box of pennies from the bank. I accumulated a very small hoard by realcent standards, $500 in face value to be exact, but as my wife and I were doing a complete house cleaning this past fall, we both saw the amount of space (and weight) of these things and I just felt my shoulders sink as I thought about moving them in the future especially if the stack grew. And yeah, I know, this is small compared with a lot of you guys. So. I figured that I could just transfer their face value into another undervalued tangible asset....silver! Now, I am a bit obsessive compulsive in some aspects of life, like coins, so I had rolled my copper cents and stored them in $25 boxes. I went to my credit union empty handed first and told them what I wanted to cash in. They were happy I had warned them and they told me to come in anytime now that they were aware. So I loaded 20 boxes in my truck, brought an old radio flyer wagon with me and wheeled them in. They took them and actually multiple employees had to go through each box to verify they were all full and accounted for
Then they handed me the cash. And yes. I did tell the teller, who I knew well, what they were and she said she knew someone who might want them. So perhaps someone with more patience and more years left got to utilize these.

In the meantime, I bought silver at a price that I thought was cheap. It takes up less space and I feel has a ton of potential as far as a store of value and potential increase in value.

So there you are gang. In retrospect it was generally fun and I pulled about 20 rolls of wheats (still have them), over 7 rolls of Canadian (7 rolls of Canadian, here in South West Virginia?), one Indian head cent, 2 King George V Canadian, bunches of other foreign coins and dozens of dimes.

In the end I actually felt more relief getting rid of them than remorse or regret.

I will continue to read the stuff here and am still a hard money advocate so realcent will still be a constant site for me to read and contribute to. I just will not be saving copper cents anymore.

Keep stacking!