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Not only am I being told that I need to limit the size of my orders at my source bank, but the last twenty boxes I ordered? ALL 2011D's. How the hell are you supposed to harvest copper... if you can't order... and what you can is all zinc???

Time to start hoarding zinc? !! It's not my first, or second, or third, or fourth choice, but it's in my top 10...

Well, Bro... I know where you could score an easy twenty boxes for the price of shipping and face. Nah, cancel that. More trouble than it'd be worth. I'll just do the Mint a favor and release them into the stream. The good news is ... no wear and tear on the Ryedales

Hey, hoarding zinc is something to think about. How many of you would've hoarded all your coppers in 1982 in retrospect? Copper was only $1 a pound. How much is Zinc today? $1 a pound. Things that make you go hmmm.....

gilpo wrote:How many of you would've hoarded all your coppers in 1982 in retrospect?

not me. you are lucky if you can sell your copper cents for 1.7 cents each. if you bought them for a penny in 1981 and held them for 30 years you would realize only 1.78% compounded return. that is well below the rate of inflation, before subtracting for storage costs, etc. you could have earned 6-10% in a bond or 12% in the stock market.

Lemon Thrower wrote:

gilpo wrote:How many of you would've hoarded all your coppers in 1982 in retrospect?

not me. you are lucky if you can sell your copper cents for 1.7 cents each. if you bought them for a penny in 1981 and held them for 30 years you would realize only 1.78% compounded return. that is well below the rate of inflation, before subtracting for storage costs, etc. you could have earned 6-10% in a bond or 12% in the stock market.

Well that and a couple of us weren't alive back then.

In the next 2 years most likely the zincs wil gain in numismatic value from further debasement and/or elimination of the penny. As far as base metal value ... see my post in the economic forum. Zinc and nickel have outpaced gold on a percentage basis since 1980.

Lemon Thrower wrote:not me. you are lucky if you can sell your copper cents for 1.7 cents each. if you bought them for a penny in 1981 and held them for 30 years you would realize only 1.78% compounded return. that is well below the rate of inflation, before subtracting for storage costs, etc. you could have earned 6-10% in a bond or 12% in the stock market.

That's if you trust the banks/government. Some of us don't, that's why we hoard metal.

I wouldn't start hoarding just plain zinc, but if I got new boxes of 2010s or 2011s you can bet I'd save them. The numismatic value will be high once the zinc penny is no longer. Imagine if you had a box of never circulated 1983 pennies. Worthless as metal, but, I'd bet worth more than dirty coppers on ebay...

Number21 wrote:

Lemon Thrower wrote:not me. you are lucky if you can sell your copper cents for 1.7 cents each. if you bought them for a penny in 1981 and held them for 30 years you would realize only 1.78% compounded return. that is well below the rate of inflation, before subtracting for storage costs, etc. you could have earned 6-10% in a bond or 12% in the stock market.

That's if you trust the banks/government. Some of us don't, that's why we hoard metal.

I wouldn't start hoarding just plain zinc, but if I got new boxes of 2010s or 2011s you can bet I'd save them. The numismatic value will be high once the zinc penny is no longer. Imagine if you had a box of never circulated 1983 pennies. Worthless as metal, but, I'd bet worth more than dirty coppers on ebay...

good point. I don't see any harm in hoarding some zinc. It all depends on what you can afford to do, your strategy, storage as lemonthrower pointed out, etc.

Number21 wrote:

Lemon Thrower wrote:not me. you are lucky if you can sell your copper cents for 1.7 cents each. if you bought them for a penny in 1981 and held them for 30 years you would realize only 1.78% compounded return. that is well below the rate of inflation, before subtracting for storage costs, etc. you could have earned 6-10% in a bond or 12% in the stock market.

That's if you trust the banks/government. Some of us don't, that's why we hoard metal.

well you can hoard whatever you want but seeing as 1.78% is less than the rate of inflation you'll be going backwards so good luck with that. thats why most people hoard copper, silver, gold and dump the fiat zincs at the bank.

WizardTN wrote:Zinc and nickel have outpaced gold on a percentage basis since 1980.

performance depends on the measurement period. i expect the monetary metals to outperform the industrial base metals going forward.

What's a "large order?"

Number21 wrote:

Lemon Thrower wrote:not me. you are lucky if you can sell your copper cents for 1.7 cents each. if you bought them for a penny in 1981 and held them for 30 years you would realize only 1.78% compounded return. that is well below the rate of inflation, before subtracting for storage costs, etc. you could have earned 6-10% in a bond or 12% in the stock market.

That's if you trust the banks/government. Some of us don't, that's why we hoard metal.

I wouldn't start hoarding just plain zinc, but if I got new boxes of 2010s or 2011s you can bet I'd save them. The numismatic value will be high once the zinc penny is no longer. Imagine if you had a box of never circulated 1983 pennies. Worthless as metal, but, I'd bet worth more than dirty coppers on ebay...

Will that not cause the numismatic value to remain relatively low, as pennies become obsolete and cease to lose their mint luster in circulation?

They are finding some doubled dies and other errors on the shields. So may be a good time to start searching them if you care to. I think most are Philly, though.