C'mon... How SERIOUS is copper???

[My2Cents]

Let me start this off as saying that I'm PRO copper bullion.... I've amassed about a ton of copper cents, and now that I'm sorting for myself instead of buying, I'm going balls to the wall with it for as long as my copper supply holds out here in Okinawa. It's not in limitless supply like back in the USA ya know

So I'm thinking that while it's a worthwhile endeavor, as there's money to be made down the road, the question I'm asking today is it REALLY worth saving and sorting all these boxes/bags/truckloads of cents to cull the copper from circulation? REALLY?????? The math, while fruitful to some lesser degree.... isn't going to make your retirement THAT much easier, even if you have TONS saved. And to be fair, there's gas money involved, time spent sorting, misc expenses like wrappers and bags/boxes.... so it's not entirely a 'free' venture is it?

So what I want to know from you fellow Realcent members, is exactly what you hope to accomplish by either your hand-sorting methods, Ryedale machines, or any other methods.... What exactly are you holding out for????? $10/lb? $50/lb? At some point you hope to cash out your hard work and thriftiness.... so what kind of return are you really hoping to achieve?

And the follow up question would be this.... don't you think that you could have garnered the same kind of returns on investment (ROI) by buying into the stock market?

Now... let me input my own reasons why I'm doing this crazy "hobby" (since that's how I view it).....
I make ample money to live on, and I invest the remainder in numerous other things.... gold/silver/real estate/guns/ ammo/ and of course... copper cents. I feel that I should have a very round investment portfolio, and at the bottom of this portfolio is this copper sorting. While it's entertaining and time consuming, I've made far better gains playing in stock options in a much shorter time frame. But I'm still drawn to it for reasons that are still elusive to me.... I guess I like the repetition or the lack of any intense thinking.

So what do you say?

[Beervestor]

same reason you stated, diversification.

[mtalbot_ca]

I simply want to be remembered as crazy grand'pa. I am not doing in for me, but for my grand kids or great-grand kids.

I might not leave them with a lot of cash, who knows what a ton of copper will be worth one day.

Bye,

[SilverDragon72]

Let me start this off as saying that I'm PRO copper bullion.... I've amassed about a ton of copper cents, and now that I'm sorting for myself instead of buying, I'm going balls to the wall with it for as long as my copper supply holds out here in Okinawa. It's not in limitless supply like back in the USA ya know

So I'm thinking that while it's a worthwhile endeavor, as there's money to be made down the road, the question I'm asking today is it REALLY worth saving and sorting all these boxes/bags/truckloads of cents to cull the copper from circulation? REALLY?????? The math, while fruitful to some lesser degree.... isn't going to make your retirement THAT much easier, even if you have TONS saved. And to be fair, there's gas money involved, time spent sorting, misc expenses like wrappers and bags/boxes.... so it's not entirely a 'free' venture is it?

So what I want to know from you fellow Realcent members, is exactly what you hope to accomplish by either your hand-sorting methods, Ryedale machines, or any other methods.... What exactly are you holding out for????? $10/lb? $50/lb? At some point you hope to cash out your hard work and thriftiness.... so what kind of return are you really hoping to achieve?

And the follow up question would be this.... don't you think that you could have garnered the same kind of returns on investment (ROI) by buying into the stock market?

Now... let me input my own reasons why I'm doing this crazy "hobby" (since that's how I view it).....
I make ample money to live on, and I invest the remainder in numerous other things.... gold/silver/real estate/guns/ ammo/ and of course... copper cents. I feel that I should have a very round investment portfolio, and at the bottom of this portfolio is this copper sorting. While it's entertaining and time consuming, I've made far better gains playing in stock options in a much shorter time frame. But I'm still drawn to it for reasons that are still elusive to me.... I guess I like the repetition or the lack of any intense thinking.

So what do you say?

What do I say? Well, I believe the majority of us want diversification of our portfolios. Let's face it, the stock market isn't always the best bet, since I kind of feel like it's a giant casino at time. The closer I get to retirement age, the less exposure I will have to stocks and other riskier investments. I wish that I could afford more silver and gold, but there is something cool about looking through boxes of pennies and nickels and finding some interesting treasures. The only hassle I see with having all of these pennies could be storage space, potentially. Gotta say, when I look at the many coins I have...it makes me a little richer, even though I know the face value isn't as high as I would like!

[Shifty51]

In my humble opinion...Metal beats Paper!!! Also real assets beat financial assets. If you can't stand in front of it with an assault rifle and defend it then you don't really own it. And your return on investment with copper cents is around 150%. No doubt you  have made better gains monetarily with stock options, but not percentage wise. That being said, if you do in fact have stocks returning 150% I would like to hire you as my financial planner. Worst case scenario stocks/bonds/paper currency will be worth their weight in kindling. At the end of the day the return is excellent and it is a very cheap and as you say fun/addicting hobby.

[avidbrandy]

In my humble opinion...Metal beats Paper!!! Also real assets beat financial assets. If you can't stand in front of it with an assault rifle and defend it then you don't really own it. And your return on investment with copper cents is around 150%. No doubt you  have made better gains monetarily with stock options, but not percentage wise. That being said, if you do in fact have stocks returning 150% I would like to hire you as my financial planner. Worst case scenario stocks/bonds/paper currency will be worth their weight in kindling. At the end of the day the return is excellent and it is a very cheap and as you say fun/addicting hobby.

This about sums it up for me as well. It's a security, just as gold is, more than an investment for me. If the melt ban gets lifted than you'll easily be able to sell every penny for two, in which case it's 100% profit. even on a 10 year investment that's not a bad return (about 7% annually).

I also just get a lot of fun out of doing it. I machine sort for copper and then pick through for wheats and other items. It's a fun hobby, and considering all the other alternatives I could pick for hobbies, this is probably one of the best financially.

[Rodebaugh]

It's fun and it and costs next to nothing.
I am preserving wealth via a physical non-perishable commodity.
I can do it for 10hrs straight....or for 3min between commercials.
I can do it every day or skip months at a time.
Times get tough, I have a small lot of liquid funds to grab at.
My fingers turn black and taste funny.

[Engineer]

My fingers turn black and taste funny.

Just what we're all looking for in a dentist!

[willy13]

Its not an investment for me. I save copper pennies in the very rare case that the dollar collapses and our paper money becomes worthless.

[hammerrob]

Copper is going to have to really, really go up in price to pay for my time... I think there's a 'treasure hunting' aspect that makes it seem worthwhile... or maybe it's the 'money for nothing' angle.

I will say the stock/option market comparison is pretty tough ... if you've been investing in stock/options you've lost some money here and there. Each copper penny we set aside will always be worth at least a penny. I haven't lost money on one yet. A better comparison is with your FDIC insured bank account. Theoretically, it's also a risk-free investment. At current rates, my bank account will need maybe 50 years to match the instant rate of return on one copper penny.

[My2Cents]

By me buying simple Call or Put options on company stocks.... I've made 100% return on my money since Jan this year. My averages over time are on the + side. Sometimes I make good bets, sometimes I make bad ones.... but the bottom line is that I've done better (return on investment) than ANY copper hoarding will do for me in 5 or 10 years.
And while the value of the cent will remain unchanged at .01, what happens when the Fed devalues the USD..... Which is coming sooner rather than later. Sure... the price of copper will go up, but in order to really MAKE money, the price would have to go up 10 fold to really realize any substantial gain... and that's only if you have tons in storage.

[John_doe]

It is more healthy than drinking beer, and can potentially be quite profitable. To me it is worth it. I play stocks, silver/gold, guns/ammo, real estate, forex, bonds etc. But my copper/silver sorting hobby is my favorite hands down.(although it is not the most profitable in the short term)

[CtrlAltBernanke]

I think the same question was probably asked about halves, quarters, and dimes many years ago and people will be asking this about nickels in the future. Hoarding definitely is not a get rich quick type of thing but if you are looking to make money and you do well at trading up then I'm sure you can do quite well making money with copper, silver, and nickels if you put your mind to it. I'm not trying to get rich quick with this but I do see in the next few years copper pennies becoming a hot commodity or at least even more popular than it is now. Nickels are the last coins left out there to be hoarded up and the only coin to change alloy during the age of the internet so I predict that nickels will be gobbled up much faster and possibly dry up in some cities. Remember less than 5 rolls of nickels per person in the U.S. If you have around a dozen hoarders in each major city the supply will dry up quick. Getting back to the pennies and my point, people will even wake up at a faster rate when nickels change over and not only will they want to keep at least a few rolls of the old nickels but they will also want copper pennies. This should temporarily push the prices of copper pennies up and G-d knows what people will be charging for wheat pennies by then. Also, another thing to consider is why people do this. Hoarding coins allows people to stay off the grid a little bit more which has more value than putting your money in a CD or whatever. I don't trust banks but unfortunately they are a necessary evil for me but if I had the space and discipline I'd have a few 55 gallon drums of copper pennies and at least $10,000 in nickels. Not to mention that it is fun and you get to enjoy the look on your friends face when you tell them that people are buying $100 worth of pennies for $165 which in my opinion is a pretty good margin.

[twentybux]

It is a "Treasure Hunt" for me and I don't taste my fingers after sorting.

[ZenOps]

Diversification.

If you can put $2,000 for an ounce or so of gold, you can also get 100 boxes of copper pennies, and 20 boxes of nickels while you are at it. It's not necessarily what *you* use as money, but what others will accept as money.

Never forget the wisdom of the man who came over to the US with a handful of glass beads and bought half of the United States. Do you want to be the guy with the glass beads, or the guy who didn't bring any?

[fasteddy]

its what I want to do...Teasure hunt in my own house. i can fill chest after chest with my bounty. That guy that treasure hunts the Florida straights and found 80 pounds of emeralds but doesnt have title yet is in debt 10 million dollars....NOT ME!

[avidbrandy]

It is a "Treasure Hunt" for me and I don't taste my fingers after sorting.

If you don't taste your fingers afterwards then how do you know how much effort you put into it? You're not getting the full experience here.

[lukesquires]

I drink beer while I sort.

[John_doe]

I drink beer while I sort.

2 birds, 1 stone.

[John_doe]

you also avoid capital gains tax which is associated with stocks. I don't know about you, but I do not like to be double taxed much.

[My2Cents]

I drink beer while I sort.

I do too... maybe that's why I like it so much.

[Rosco]

I drink beer while I sort.

Is that Sort or Snort

[twentybux]

It is a "Treasure Hunt" for me and I don't taste my fingers after sorting.

If you don't taste your fingers afterwards then how do you know how much effort you put into it? You're not getting the full experience here.

You've got a point.

[pennypanner]

Saturday I sold $67 dollars, face, in pennies to my local coin shop. I left the shop with two BU ASEs and deposited $65 in my savings account. I turn pennies into silver and gold which takes up a lot less storage space. I do keep some pennies that may have some numismatic value some day.

[creshka46]

Now that I have my ryedale, it's more worth my time. I can run $200 a week and acquire $40-50 in copper, that's $20-25 profit right now with potential for future gain. And it takes 3-4 hours total per week. I dump the coins at a bank by my work during lunch, and pick up bags once a week at a different branch on my way home. So every year I can make $1000 extra cash with hardly any extra costs in gas, etc.