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I've started thinking more and more lately about what I'm ever going to do with my penny hoard. I don't want to be burried with it.

Let's say it becomes legal to melt the copper pennies again. What exactly do I do with them besides selling to people on ebay? Just take the coins to a metal recycler and walk out with cash? I don't know anything about metal recycling other than how to find a place in the phone book. Would pennies be considered #1 grade? Would they be worth more if they were cleaned or melted into bars?

How much money should you expect to get from your metal compared to the current spot price?

I'm no expert, but this thread has some info I found useful: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8112

I wouldn't expect anything like melt value even if you had good relations with the smelter - that business is capital intensive and they need to make a profit.

Nevertheless, I think Pennies are one of the very, very best assets to own because of their extreme discount to spot and their appreciation likelihood in an inflationary environment that seems quite inevitable given the political climate.

But, who knows, the penny once had real purchasing power simply as money. That situation could arise once again when it is fully valued and the dollar has a commodity money backing.

If they lift the melt ban it will be end of game shortly as far as obtaining pennies. Pennies would be considered #2 copper. You could expect to receive significantly less than spot.. the scrapyard must make cover expenses and make a profit for operating. Prices would vary from yard to yard by a bit, and based on size of your sale.. so you would shop around.

HoardCopperByTheTon wrote:Pennies would be considered #2 copper.

Is this because they are dirty and hard to count, or simply because they are not pure copper? Would pre-melted pennies be worth more?

There are definitions of scrap copper, based on the difficulty in re-processing it. Since cents are not currently processed, who knows what they will sell for, but when the ban is lifted and the market is created (any prior melting or re-processing of cents will be a shadow of what will come) I tend to believe they will create a specific category just for cents. If you want to estimate a value for the time being, Hoard's suggestion is reasonable.

Well, the following article really crashes my worldview about dumping coppers some day. A commenter below the article says it's going to take 25 years for copper prices to rise. First, I want to know how anybody knows what's going to happen 25 years from now.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/watch-copper

By the way, for anybody who wants out, I'll buy all your 95% inventory at face value shipping included. I think pennies beat toilet paper in a post-fiat world.

By the way, for anybody who wants out, I'll buy all your 95% inventory at face value shipping included. I think pennies beat toilet paper in a post-fiat world.[/quote]

I think you will be hard pressed to find anyone on here that will dump their Cu for face.

It comes down to this for me, shinnosuke. If some miracle occurs and the world economy gets better, there are serious supply constraints on copper and it would do well. If the world economy doesn't get better, it's so-called leaders will print money trying to save themselves. In the latter scenario, I personally expect a significant drawdown in any economically-sensitive assets, copper being a prime example. It's not out of the question to see old Pennies fall below face value; it's a distinct possibility prior to the full-fledged reflation efforts (death throes) by the currency printers.

The second scenario is a hell of a lot more painful, of course. The advantage to Penny hoarders is that, in a temporarily horribly deflated world, they can take their coins back to the bank if they want, and use the proceeds to buy some other great assets that may have gone down 90% or so. -90% is a completely realistic figure for many things, especially stocks. Within my frame of reference, from 2007-2009, there were unleveraged "value investors" who saw their entire portfolios down 70%+, within which you can assume there were individual securities down 90%.

Coin hoarding is a powerful defensive measure in both a deflationary or inflationary environment.

shinnosuke wrote:By the way, for anybody who wants out, I'll buy all your 95% inventory at face value shipping included. I think pennies beat toilet paper in a post-fiat world.

I dunno about you, but I sure as hell don't wanna wipe with leaves or the yellow pages.

68Camaro wrote:There are definitions of scrap copper, based on the difficulty in re-processing it. Since cents are not currently processed, who knows what they will sell for

Just out of curiosity, would I get more money if I brought in a stack of shiny copper bars, than a bag of dirty copper shards?

cesariojpn wrote:

shinnosuke wrote:By the way, for anybody who wants out, I'll buy all your 95% inventory at face value shipping included. I think pennies beat toilet paper in a post-fiat world.

I dunno about you, but I sure as hell don't wanna wipe with leaves or the yellow pages.

Referring to fully-debauched FRNs, of course, not real toilet paper.

iluc wrote:It comes down to this for me, shinnosuke. If some miracle occurs and the world economy gets better, there are serious supply constraints on copper and it would do well. If the world economy doesn't get better, it's so-called leaders will print money trying to save themselves. In the latter scenario, I personally expect a significant drawdown in any economically-sensitive assets, copper being a prime example. It's not out of the question to see old Pennies fall below face value; it's a distinct possibility prior to the full-fledged reflation efforts (death throes) by the currency printers.

The second scenario is a hell of a lot more painful, of course. The advantage to Penny hoarders is that, in a temporarily horribly deflated world, they can take their coins back to the bank if they want, and use the proceeds to buy some other great assets that may have gone down 90% or so. -90% is a completely realistic figure for many things, especially stocks. Within my frame of reference, from 2007-2009, there were unleveraged "value investors" who saw their entire portfolios down 70%+, within which you can assume there were individual securities down 90%.

Coin hoarding is a powerful defensive measure in both a deflationary or inflationary environment.

Regardless of what the pundits say and no matter the price increases or decreases, I simply don't have enough PMs or base metals. Thus a net buyer I will be until things are so bad I need to part with metals for living expenses. Simply, I agree with you.

shinnosuke, amen. all we can do is help spread that word so as many people come out on the other side with savings intact so they can be relatively self-reliant. the denial factor amongst most money managers I know is almost unfathomable, but i'm keeping up that fight in the hopes that some of the silent observers amongst them will take a bit of it to heart and do something responsible for their clients. keep on saving!

I guess the best way to unload them might be in bars on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fantastic-Price ... 2c5ea591d8
"Fantastic price, just $7.80/lb!"
And look how many have sold...

I don't know how I'm gonna melt them, but that will probably be my course of action when the time comes.

Number21 wrote:I guess the best way to unload them might be in bars on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fantastic-Price ... 2c5ea591d8
"Fantastic price, just $7.80/lb!"
And look how many have sold...

"Shipping: Not Available to Alaska/Hawaii"

Throw it into a frickin' flat rate envelope/video box and tape it up. How hard is that? Irks me when I see that. Unless this idiot thinks Alaska and Hawaii are "foreign soil" to him.

Number21 wrote:

68Camaro wrote:There are definitions of scrap copper, based on the difficulty in re-processing it. Since cents are not currently processed, who knows what they will sell for

Just out of curiosity, would I get more money if I brought in a stack of shiny copper bars, than a bag of dirty copper shards?

They will not care.