Should Canadian hoarders grab all pennies or just copper ?

[1945v]

Canadian hoarders have several options for pulling pennies out of circulation before the government starts its ARP (alloy recovery program) in late 2012.

1) Copper only
2) Copper and zinc
3) All (copper, zinc and steel)

I am only going to grab copper pennies for now. I don't want to store coins that are below face value.
But, grabbing everything has the advantage of no sorting, just stacking boxes.

[barrytrot]

I would say only grab "steel" if you are selling it on ebay or somewhere right away.

Having 500 pounds of steel is NOT going to help you long term

[Cu Lung]

I am just grabbinbg Cu, mint boxes when I can find them and am going keep 4-6 unsearched boxes for the future.

[mtalbot_ca]

3)

I keep all.

[ZenOps]

I'll be keeping all of them for a year or so at least.

There is a small but reasonable chance that they will announce next year, a penny buyback program. Where they might give you say 1.5 cents for every penny you bring in.

It sure beats 1% interest.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

I keep all of them. I have quite a nice collection of old CA coppers. I've had a childhood fascination with Canadian coins ever since my Uncle brought handfuls of them back from his first trip to Montreal in 1972. I still have all of them... a couple of silver dimes and real nickels too.

[Engineer]

Over the long term the steel cents may wind up being more valuable than the copper just because nobody sees value in them today.

[barrytrot]

I'll be keeping all of them for a year or so at least.

There is a small but reasonable chance that they will announce next year, a penny buyback program. Where they might give you say 1.5 cents for every penny you bring in.

It sure beats 1% interest.

Yowzer. Why would they do this? I'm not saying I have any knowledge, I do not. I'm just saying "why on earth" would they do this?

[goodcents]

Here's a little research, however, nothing on any premium paid at buyback. They have 20 billion pennies in circulation. Will be a 200 million dollar buyback to save 2 million a year.... Kind of strange math but ok...

Some tidbits:

- that one-cent coins continue to be legal tender until the end of the 12-month calling-in period, so that Canadians may continue to use them in commercial transactions during that time.

- that the Bank of Canada continue to redeem one-cent coins indefinitely, and that financial institutions be allowed to choose whether, and for how long, they will continue to facilitate the return of one-cent coins to the Bank of Canada after the calling-in period ends.

- that the government encourage charitable organizations to implement fundraising campaigns that would assist in the collection of one-cent coins for removal from circulation.

- that the Royal Canadian Mint be allowed to decide on the basis of profitability whether to continue limited production of the one-cent coin for direct sale to collectors.

[ZenOps]

Because each roll of Canadian copper pennies is anywhere between 4 and 5 ounces or so, or about 4 ounces of zinc, or if slightly unlucky, steel.

Buying back appoximately 20 billion mostly copper pennies at 1.5 cents would net them a profit of approximately $150 million (assuming copper stays around $4 per pound, and zinc $1 per pound)

But its not really good to think of it in dollar terms, as copper could hit $8 per pound pretty easily... Heck, nickel could surpass silver again too, you just never know.

Both the US and Canada never got around to a "buyback" program in 1968 to 1970 for silver dimes, quarters, halves and dollars - because it was too late by then to get anything back, they were all hoarded by the public by then.

[barrytrot]

Well, please let me know if they start paying 1.5x for steel as I have about $2,000 worth due to buying a large load of bulk cents a couple years ago

[ZenOps]

I wouldn't go too overboard on the keeping zincers and steelies.

The banks probably would have a maximum absorption amount per day, I'd wager to say probably two boxes or even two bundles. Just like most banks have withdrawl limits usually around two boxes or two bundles (without incurring extra charges, some sort of commercial fee)

[JadeDragon]

@goodcents - the info you posted differs somewhat from what I've read. What's the source?

@ZenOps - I've never seen a withdrawal limit on coins other than the number of coins the bank has in the branch, minus some to give to other clients. As long as you promise not to bring it back most branches will happily sell pennies and nickels.

[ZenOps]

@goodcents - the info you posted differs somewhat from what I've read. What's the source?

@ZenOps - I've never seen a withdrawal limit on coins other than the number of coins the bank has in the branch, minus some to give to other clients. As long as you promise not to bring it back most branches will happily sell pennies and nickels.

It depends really on branch. TD here in Calgary seems to be limiting me to $15 per day per branch on pennies. We also have one of the more prominent coin shops (albern/gatewest) and I'm pretty sure enthusiasts are sucking up a lot of the pennies before they stop circulation.

CIBC is now actively marking all my penny withdrawls as "box of pennies" hand scrawled, which they never used to do before.

[goodcents]

Jade,
I must admit the info I posted was from a subpar source.

http://number11.ca/?p=573

[JadeDragon]

Jade,
I must admit the info I posted was from a subpar source.

http://number11.ca/?p=573

Posted in Dec 2010 - long before the official announcement. His logic is flawed on the roundup/round down too. Why is eliminating the penny going to make everything go up 5% in cost?

[JadeDragon]

@goodcents - the info you posted differs somewhat from what I've read. What's the source?

@ZenOps - I've never seen a withdrawal limit on coins other than the number of coins the bank has in the branch, minus some to give to other clients. As long as you promise not to bring it back most branches will happily sell pennies and nickels.

It depends really on branch. TD here in Calgary seems to be limiting me to $15 per day per branch on pennies. We also have one of the more prominent coin shops (albern/gatewest) and I'm pretty sure enthusiasts are sucking up a lot of the pennies before they stop circulation.

CIBC is now actively marking all my penny withdrawls as "box of pennies" hand scrawled, which they never used to do before.

I have yet to find a TD branch that stocks much more than $15 in pennies at a time.
RBC generally stocks much greater quantities of coin.

[fansubs_ca]

I'll be keeping all of them for a year or so at least.

There is a small but reasonable chance that they will announce next year, a penny buyback program. Where they might give you say 1.5 cents for every penny you bring in.

It sure beats 1% interest.

If they do that and the U.S. is still circulating their penny the Canadian government
will end up getting a lot of U.S. pennies in the mix. (About 4% of what's circulating
up here already is anyways. ^_-)

The simple fact is that most of the general population doesn't even know the U.S.
restricts the amount of pennies you can export so without knowing it people who
think they've found the next big thing will become large scale penny smuglers
just to exploit the bounty on them. That sucking sound is all your pennies going
to the Canadian mint. ^_-

As for my own stratagy:

Whatever I'm able to acquire while I still can I will:

-Do an initial magnet sort, steel in one box, zinc and copper in the other
-Unload magnetic pennies as soon as oportunities present themselves to do so,
not sure how fast this process will go. Maybe take handfulls by weight with me
when I go to the Safeway with a self check out to save on rolling. Might talk to
my freindly neighborhood 7-11 manger about selling them boxes of pennies as
they need them. Want to build up a few boxes pre-rolled and ready to go before
I do this so I don't run short on what they need. Just have them tell me what to
bring them and when. (7-11 doesn't have a lot of extra space. ^_-)
-Sort copper from zinc later
-Decide what to do with zinc later once my steel pennies are gone and I have no
new sourcing.

Also if the government isn't too agresive pulling them in and just lets the supply
gradually get tight we may just see some businesses bring in U.S. pennies so
they can keep their tills stocked and avoid blowback from anyone that doesn't
like the rounding. This will largely depend how many people just say "meh" or
already dislike the penny versus how many people make noise about being
shorted a penny or two. Also having enough change instead of rounding means
your bussiness avoids people "gaming" the rounding rules. There are just enough
people that will come up with the pennies only when it's to their advantage to do
so that any bussiness that follows the standard rules will consistantly come up short.
Also unless the rounding is built into the till's software companies with really anal
acounting will have staff get irriated after the 37th time they are written up for
being more than X amount short despite it being the result of rounding and under
anticipated gaming of the system by consumers. ^_-

Strictly speaking I can see clerks who get sick of this taking it upon themselves
to bring in a certain amount of U.S. pennies to sell to their own till at the beggining
of each shift just to avoid the rounding game. Getting any freinds or relatives
going south to grab them pennies to keep them supplied.

Converting 1004.10 Canadian Dollars to U.S. Dollars will yield 1005.00 U.S. Dollars.
(Derived rate = 1.0009) (At Royal Bank today.) so it's an economical sourcing of
change. Again most business people don't know about the export restrictions so
most violations would be accidental.

The teller I got some pennies from today told me at some point they will start just
sending any pennies they get back to the Bank of Canada but he didn't know when
that would happen. I should probably try to convince my credit union and/or bank
to let me have them, though that may mean jumping each day they call me to say
they have some. Not sure how smoothly that would work.

[robroy]

The US will face a very similiar situation in the coming future. When this happens they will have the same decision to make that Canadians have to face now.

IMO pennies will become much more collectable. The older the penny the more desirable the coin will become.
In 20 years the copper will become as desirable as a silver coin is now. The zinc coins will move up in collectability, while the new steel coins should be curiousity that will be around for a long time.

Any recovery activity that the mint or the central bank does will not drive the coin out of existence. For a feeling of this, look at the gold coins from the 30's and prior and the silver coins (although there was not a government led eradication program).

Eventually the further we move away from the recall movement the higher any premium will be. So I would start collecting everything I could (especially if steel coins do come into existance).

[bigbub]

are the canadian cents with the bird on the back worth more?

[fansubs_ca]

are the canadian cents with the bird on the back worth more?

Well, they aren't particularily rare. I see them in my change relatively often, however
if you happen to come across a collector that wants one and isn't in Canada (or is
really too lazy to sort) that doesn't mean you can't get more than melt from them
by selling them directly to them. The likelyhood of selling them to a coin shop is
pretty slim though.

If I go through my pre-1981 jars I could probably find a few of them.

In 1967 they also made a special nickel with an Arctic Hare on it, I see one of those
for about every $100 in nickels I go through.

http://colonialacres.com/products.php?view=2373&ref=

They also made a special dime, quarter, half, and silver dollar that year, of course
all of those have silver content in them because Canada was still using silver back
then.

http://colonialacres.com/products.php?view=2374&ref=
http://colonialacres.com/products.php?view=2375&ref=
http://www.numicanada.com/medias/pieces ... 1967-g.jpg
http://colonialacres.com/products.php?view=2376&ref=