At what point

[RodoubleB]

So, being new to all of this. At what point in copper pricing do people start taking a interest in penny sorting? At what point did everyone seem to drop off? $2.50 mark?

[68Camaro]

For many it was as much about the dropping silver prices as it was the copper. Chance of a lifetime to buy back into the manipulated deal of the century so for myself I refocused on silver, with copper going into the background. Obviously copper price had an impact. Good question though. I think it was a continuum but when sellable cents dropped below 1.5x a lot of people slowed or stopped.

[wheeler_dealer]

I noticed a drop off in sellers at 1.5 cents. Below that and it seemed not worth it. If you are collecting for personal stash then the price won't matter. Better a hundred copper pennies than a paper promise.

[frugi]

when realcent was originally formed about a decade ago (tempus Fugit).......

You could walk into any bank, and pay $25.00 for a box of 2500 US cents.

You would take it home and hand sort it, and come out with about 25-30% copper on average,. go return the zincs, and restart the process. Sometimes, you would find wheats, indian heads, dimes, silver dimes, etc. You could buy at most banks brinks bags of 5000 US cents for $50.00, these were bags from coin counter machines from customers dumping jars of change, these bags were always full of great numismatic coins along with better percentages of copper....

Over the years technology has progressed to the point where everyone and the mother could have a coin sorter of some type for practically no investment. As more and more people left hand sorting and moved to machine sorting, the amount of circulating copper became fewer and fewer. Then metal prices skyrocketed about 5 years ago. This allowed for more innovations in this machine sorting industry. Newer more advanced machines were being invented and built. Major companies (like Brinks) for example started machine sorting coins on a mass scale. As well as governments sorting as well. The newest and most advanced machine sorters now can sort out everything. You can dump a bucket of junk that has washers, screws, silver US coins, foreign coins, current circulating coins, copper, zincs, etc..... these machines will sort out everything......

Now fast forward a few years to the present day. The technology is still here, and still be utilized, and advancing every day.

The problem is, is now anyone who can afford a sorting machine of any type is sorting with them, and pulling out the good stuff and a very fast rate....... Basically, every business that deals with coins in mass amounts is sorting them......

Canada & USA both have these new advanced sorting machines, and are running them night and day to retrieve copper, and other valuable base metals from circulation, and the re-issuing junk fiat, steel or zinc, or CuNi coins to replace them, or in discontinuing the use of one and five cent coins altogether.

At the point where we are now I realized perhaps 2 maybe 3 years ago that it was very rare to find a box of cents at a bank that contained more than 10% copper. I have bought boxes that were full of mixed date, mixed conditions, rolled coins.....only to find out after opening all the rolls to find ZERO copper. Or, I have bought boxes that the entire box is BU, shiny new zincs.....

I dont have a sorting machine. I dont hand sort anymore. The only copper cents I collect anymore is from my pocket change, or if I stumble across someone liquidating a old US cent collection by weight. I just bought 250 lbs of US cents from a guy for $1.25/lb. which was under face. He inherited the collection from his dad, all still rolled up from the 1960's-1980's......

I guess for me penny sorting was never about instant profit, but more about sitting around hand sorting cents for fun during my spare time, or when I was bored at work. As my priorities have changed over the years I found I will probably never sit down and hand sort bank boxes or bags ever again.

If you are interested in hand sorting, you should try it and let us all know your percentages. I am sure there is still a tracking topic here, and you can report your percentages.

caveat emptor sorting cents is addictive.

[justoneguy]

For many it was as much about the dropping silver prices as it was the copper. Chance of a lifetime to buy
when sellable cents dropped below 1.5x a lot of people slowed or stopped.

+1

[RodoubleB]

What dollar amount does copper need to get to, to warrant the 1.5 fv?

[68Camaro]

The math is fairly basic so let's work it out in the open, using round-ish numbers.

A pound has 454 grams.
A copper cent weighs 3.1 grams.
Therefore a pound of cents contains 454/3.1 = about 146 cents of 95% copper.
To get a pound of copper (ignoring the value of the zinc) you would divide the 146 by .95, so 154 cents yields a pound of copper.
1.5x of $1.54 would be $2.31 (which would yield a pound of copper).

Copper is currently $2.29/lb, so we're real close to the 1.5x mark right now.

But to get people to pay 1.5x for the copper, they need to be able to sell it for more than that. What that yield is is up to the user to determine, but with shipping and handling costs and some margin/profit, I think you'd need the price of copper to be at least another 20% above the $2.31 mark, so maybe $2.77 (or more).

[dakota1955]

I'm not going back in until there is a market that's buying the coins I would find. Because of finding a place to keep without moving them to many time isn't worth the trouble. At one time I was over a ton of copper.

[joee5]

I'm still hoarding them as I come across copper pennies

[JadeDragon]

I stopped sorting copper when the Canadian banks stopped selling pennies. Occasionally I score a few penny rolls now - maybe $20 of pennies in a bag waiting for me to dust off the Ryedale.

I sort nickels still occasionally but I handsort them as the quantities I can quickly buy are hardly worth setting up the ryedale and the very few Ni coins fairly jump out to my eye (they have a different hue and younger queen).

[Recyclersteve]

If someone discovered a new coin like a '55 or '72 double die and it got enough publicity, that might get some people looking again. And some of them might get hooked. Also, if there were some significant new uses for copper discovered, that could help.

[hammerrob]

As long as the melt ban stays in place I think there needs to be a big premium on the copper price to maintain an active market in copper cents. Right now the copper price is about 1.5 x face. I think a healthy market price is 2.5x or better.