I don't generally participate......

[jldco]

I don't generally participate in percentage topics (or many at all by looking at my posts since 2007), let alone start one, but what are your thoughts on the fact that there are tons and tons of new cents put in the market by the fed every year. Even if there weren't a significant number of coppers exiting the population, (which I don't think is significant unless you're sorting in the Pacific Northwest, Northwest Arkansas or Pennsylvania, wouldn't the percentage of copper vs zinc be skewing in favor of zinc somewhat anyway, just by the huge number of zinc's coming into the market? Because in the thread that got me to thinking about this, everyone was generally down only a few percent. I have taken a significant amount of cu out of my market in the last 4/5 years and it only seems to be down 5% or so. Just taking a visual survey, there seems to be an awful lot of shiny newer type coins in my zinc bags.

I know there are some sharp statistical minds here and I just wondered what you guys had to say.... Like on talk radio, I'll just hang up and listen...

[Engineer]

The new zincs dilute the copper population every year by a certain amount, but they also seem to wear out faster, so the dilution isn't as much as it would seem.

[Chief]

Long time listener, first time caller. There are still billions of coppers out there. I bet I could acquire another ton within a year, easily. They are being hoarded, but they are still out there, for sure.

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

I think we did some calculations a while back and figured the dilution was good for .5 to 1 percent per year. Of course if a fellow was to get those shiny new zincs in quantity early in the year.. and sell them off really quick, while they still had some value.. he could fund a good portion of his copper hoarding. Since they hardly ever melt down the copper ones, and it is illegal for us to do so.. the number of copper cents available should remain constant.. just a slightly lower percentage as the new stuff comes into play. We haven't even begun to hoard all that copper yet.

[jldco]

"We haven't even begun to hoard all that copper yet."

Might thoughts exactly!

[Robarons]

Commercial operations would be the only folks to make a meaningful dent in supply

Look at Canada's ARP (alloy recovery program) did to .999 Nickels where I think it dropped from 15-20% to 5%> in 5 years if I recall

[scyther]

Commercial operations would be the only folks to make a meaningful dent in supply

Look at Canada's ARP (alloy recovery program) did to .999 Nickels where I think it dropped from 15-20% to 5%> in 5 years if I recall

I think if they lifted the ban, it would go below 10% in a year or 2. We know it was profitable in 2006, it should be now. Paradoxically, they need to lift the ban for the percentages to decrease, but percentages need to decrease for them to lift the ban. But if it went to 3 or 4 times face, I think you might see industrial scale hoarding, even without melting.