Realcent.org

Is Cost NEGATIVE.

I've begun to think that anyone selling less than tons for less than 1.5 x face is working for free.

Especially anyone handsorting, to sell at less than 2X is like working for .25 cents an hour. yes, it can be relaxing, but once you spend gas both ways. Waiting in bank lines. paying for soap to wash off all the grime. It can't at all be worth it.

And a problem I've run into is MOVING. It really isn't worth taking them with you, but selling them off uses lots of time and energy, gas, shipping fees. And if you take them with you, you spend more in gas, backache=chiropracter, etc.


NOW, for a stable person with a solid house/garage and plenty of time to sit on them..... the opportunity to MINE copper just can't be beat. But I see selling at 4x face, not 1.4.

(1more)

Pennybullion does a good job turning copper on eBay for between 1.5 and 1.7, and he's still going.

I also thought about which is best the short quick turn or waiting for the price to go up before selling tough call

As a handsorter I would not sell for anything less than 4xface.

I also think that the current active sell price of 135-140 per $100 face shipped is Crazy Low.

Are you supposed to sell them?

I was just sorting to have somthing in common with you guys.

It truly is all situational. There are many variables that come into play.
Travel time, sorting time, opportunity cost, asset depreciation.
IF your bank is very close like it is for me. (2.2miles 5minutes away) It literately cost me a dollar or so to drive there and back. But my car gets 30mpg city. But I already go there once a week and they have a free coin counter in the lobby. So I could remove this cost almost completely.
The opportunity cost of me sorting 400 pennies to get 100 copper (my yield is 25 to 30 %, I went with 25% clearly.)
My opportunity cost is $25.5 (at 8.08 an hour the wage staples pay me per hour)
So if I sort $400 and yield 100 to sell at 1.4, I end up profiting 13$ if I sell locally.
However, if you factor in shipping, I only break even. But you must consider I am doing something I enjoy, versus going to work at my “real job”.

Clearly I would rather sort.


Now if I were to make more an hour, as I will in the future after I am out of college. It would no longer make sense to sort. Unless of course I am selling for a higher amount.


EDIT: I am using a Rydale Apprentice to sort, hand sorting I would not sell till 4x face either.


Note: There are a bunch of numbers I took into account on my excel sheet, but for the sake of watching the football game on TV right now (Saints vs. Vikings) I didn’t list it all.

haha thogey that cracked me up. Poor guy you are just looking for friends and these jerks have to make it all about business

I know you guys want to sell coppers at the best price you can get to make it worthwhile. But at this time, it is a buyers market and the going rate seems to be much less than 1.6X face. To be honest, it is a great time for accumulating, and a terrible time to flip your coppers for a meaningful profit. I think the elimination of penny and the subsequent lifting of the copper melt ban has to happen before you will get anything close to spot copper. Just my 2c.

Working within the margins, it's how all companies end up working over time, and that's how people selling pennies have to work now.

You could try and inform people about the pennies being worth 2.2x face(as of 9-9-2010) and generate more demand, but you are just as likely to create more suppliers.
Here is hoping for higher copper prices, over an extended period of time.

AlexTG wrote:You could try and inform people about the pennies being worth 2.2x face(as of 9-9-2010) and generate more demand, but you are just as likely to create more suppliers.

How true! hahah!

One other thought. because so many are now conditioned that 1.8 is "HIGH", if we ever reach 2X acheivable price, the big guys will be the ones ruling that market. Us handsorters will have to wait, wait, wait even longer for 3X, or 4X.

Think of how much copper has already been pulled. there really is a near endless supply of copper cents. At least until melting ensues.

My HO.

That's why mine are not going anywhere for less than 25X face. Of course it may be my one day to be born grandkids that actually sell them at that rate.

Thogey wrote:Are you supposed to sell them? I was just sorting to have somthing in common with you guys.

I'm kinda in that boat. I was thinking about that tonight as I sorted while "watching" the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Here's my perspective: I mine the copper out as a BYPRODUCT of what I do. I look for Indians (obviously), wheats, S-mint memorials, Canadian, other world coins, save all 1982s, check the 1992 for CAMS and 98-99-00 for WAMs, 1995 for doubling, and actually keep all 1959 and 1960 as well... found a CUD tonight. And what seems to be a 1992 with a missing 2. And a beautiful BU 1974 (which I will save because it's my birth year).
Again, I mine copper as a BYPRODUCT. I store up what I can while hand sorting, and if I happen to sell some, every cent I make in profit is actual profit in my opinion. But I am certainly the exception to the rule in this group. I can roll with that, as long as you don't all poke me in the eye for it...

If you have 1 ryedale and sort $400 and get 25% copper return. Assuming you have only a few jams thats 2.5 hrs worth of sorting time. Assuming your bank is close and you don't have to wait you have 10 mins pick up time and when returning them using a 4000/min coin counter you have 8 mins counting and 7 mins of waiting for them to change bags. Add in 15 mins worth of driving. Add in 10 mins worth of packaging. Add in $2 worth of tape and $11 to ship. Add 10 mins round trip to the post office.

Machine costs. Ryedale is good for at least 5 million coins. 40000/5000000 = .008% of the machine use. .008 X $500 (cost of new machine) =$4


Sell for 1.3 times shipped.

Sold $130
-$100 FV
=$30
-$2 tape
=$28
-$11 shipping
=$17
-$4 machine costs
=$13

Not factoring in the cost of electricity or the cost to use your car/truck/van or anything else.....


Profit of $13 for 3.5 hrs of work. You made $3.71 an hr and had a profit margin of 3.25% on your investment of $400.




Yes, this will go up if you sort more than $400 at once but unless your sorting a lot and cutting down on your driving timw its really not gonna be that profitable to sell for 1.3x shipped.

This is why I don't get how or why people sell for so little...

Corsair wrote:Pennybullion does a good job turning copper on eBay for between 1.5 and 1.7, and he's still going.

Thats because its not his only business as well as a few other reason.....

1.5 on ebay =$150
-$4.50 paypal
=$145.5
-$6.5 ebay fees
=$139
-$11 shipping
=$128
-$2 tape
=$126
- $100 face value
=$26


And this does NOT factor in machines costs or time or anything else.

That's why I sell for 1.4 to 1.5 and do so locally.

nice breakdown highroller. That illustrates what I meant.

Unfortunately, my experiences with coin machines in Texas have resulted in total in bank time at about twice those you quoted.

highroller4321 wrote:

Corsair wrote:Pennybullion does a good job turning copper on eBay for between 1.5 and 1.7, and he's still going.

Thats because its not his only business as well as a few other reason.....

1.5 on ebay =$150
-$4.50 paypal
=$145.5
-$6.5 ebay fees
=$139
-$11 shipping
=$128
-$2 tape
=$126
- $100 face value
=$26


And this does NOT factor in machines costs or time or anything else.

You also have to consider that the E-Bay auctions are used as bait. He might sell a bag or two to one guy that later wants to buy a ton. Then he can make more money off of one delivery.

I use 3 machines and always try to get a minimum of $700 when I pick up. This gives me about $160 in copper. Using 3 machines reduces the sort time to about 1.5 hours. I also dump and pick-up on the same trip. I dump my halves with my zincs.

Have I sold some at 1.5X...YES. Did I want to...NO. I did it because I had so much FRN's tied up in copper and PM's that I needed to sell something. Since copper was the cheapest to replace I sold it.

slickeast wrote:

highroller4321 wrote:

Corsair wrote:Pennybullion does a good job turning copper on eBay for between 1.5 and 1.7, and he's still going.

Thats because its not his only business as well as a few other reason.....

1.5 on ebay =$150
-$4.50 paypal
=$145.5
-$6.5 ebay fees
=$139
-$11 shipping
=$128
-$2 tape
=$126
- $100 face value
=$26


And this does NOT factor in machines costs or time or anything else.

You also have to consider that the E-Bay auctions are used as bait. He might sell a bag or two to one guy that later wants to buy a ton. Then he can make more money off of one delivery.

I use 3 machines and always try to get a minimum of $700 when I pick up. This gives me about $160 in copper. Using 3 machines reduces the sort time to about 1.5 hours. I also dump and pick-up on the same trip. I dump my halves with my zincs.

Have I sold some at 1.5X...YES. Did I want to...NO. I did it because I had so much FRN's tied up in copper and PM's that I needed to sell something. Since copper was the cheapest to replace I sold it.

Yes, PB might snag a customer. I wasen't saying there was anything wrong against what he is doing. His situation is unlike most of the people on the forum. I am just saying this on a general basis and not trying to point out individual people.


For a non copper penny business running member it is still not very profitable to use ebay as an outlet when you get such "low" numbers.




Yes, each person senarios is different. You have 3 machines so you have 3x the machine cost, but you try to equal that out with volume. Your sorting time is down but your dumping and picking up time is more. There are pro's and con's to each senario. Really know matter how you "put a spin" on it selling for 1.5x or less is not time effiecent or profitable enough......at least in my eyes. If you can minimize your costs and time and do it on a large volume than thats where you start to see a profit.


Once again yes everyone senario and goals are different. However, in my opinion, if you are going to sell X amount of copper to be able to sort more to build your "hoard" bigger you are better off going to get a part time job and use those funds for the copper because you will get more than $3 (ish) an hour.



I am not saying there is anything wrong with people selling this low. I just don't understand the reasons behind making less than half minimum wage....

Make full minimum wage @ Mickey'Ds or half at home sorting for wheats and selling copper byproduct......

hhhmmmmm. I do like chicken mcnuggets and those uniforms are quite snazy.

I don't even think we've mentioned having to re roll to return.

That is the situation I'm in now in South Texas.

And that cuts any profit(if I was selling), down to about 1/16 of minimum wage.

If you don't have to reroll to dump, then it isn't that bad.

But on a side note, I'm traini.....teaching my young son to roll pennies, and rewarding him in Wheat cents and movie privileges. Plus I let him sort sometimes, but that takes some of the fun from me, and I don't get the S mint, etc when he is doing the sorting.

It does depend on your situation. If you get 30% copper, a 1.6 time face may not be bad. I only get approximatley 12% copper, meaning I have to go through a lot more pennies than some others do to get the same amount of copper. I cant affod to sell for less that 1.6 times face. I need to at least make of for the gas to go to all of the banks.

wolvesdad wrote:nice breakdown highroller. That illustrates what I meant.

Unfortunately, my experiences with coin machines in Texas have resulted in total in bank time at about twice those you quoted.

Yup, we only have Capital One that has free coin counters. All the machines in San Antonio don't like pennies, which the banks tell me is because the 'half dollar guy' broke them. I can only run my pennies through the coin counters when I visit Austin.

Besides the few big timers who may be making a profit now..most likely anyone selling today is just looking to clear up some funds to continue their hobby.
There are so many variables in sorting its hard to place just a dollar amount on it.Most forum members enjoy sorting as a hobby only and may even be taking a loss with gas costs,machine investments,ect.with the only payoff being enjoyment. A mid level sorter with many machines could be making a small profit,or break even at current cu sales prices and amassing a nice hoard of wheats,indians,errors and other oddities which will have a higher multiple of payoff in the future. But if you only look at current prices to justify if its profitible or worthwhile to sort then I guess its a waste of time.You won't know how the equasions will end in the cost analisis until the future and all your copper is sold.But I know most sorters do it because its enjoyable for them to do it and know the days of the one cent piece are numbered,and when that day comes they will have their hoard of various coppers,and more importantly the knowledge to take advantage of the current situation.Lots of businesses operate at a loss for years before turning a profit.Good things can come to those who wait.

I being a hand sorter don't plan on selling anytime soon. I going to wait till they totally phase out the penny and nickel and devalue the dollar. Well that might be sooner than later the way things are going!

I agree that selling at current prices you can't make any money but I only sort to look for stuff for my collection and errors etc that I can sell. The coppers are more of a by-product to me. I can't afford to keep them all, if I did I'd run out of cash to buy more coins to sort.