| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| topeka |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 08:42:45
If TODAY, the melt value of a copper penny rose to _____ ,
the general public would hoard 97% of copper out of circulation within 3 months. |
| 20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| JerrySpringer |
Posted - 06/08/2008 : 11:33:28
quote:
Everyone would think they're poor if they hoarded pennies!
Probably right there. That is good news for us though. Better to be viewed as a pauper than someone who is meticulously assembling something that should be controlled by new laws or ownership limits. |
| Flbandit |
Posted - 06/07/2008 : 18:22:50
"Ghetto Gold". I like that!! I think a certain segment of society will notice at about a nickel. My boss once told me I have a hoarder mentality! I think people like that will pick up on it and start saving. The larger portion of the masses never will. Everyone would think they're poor if they hoarded pennies! |
| fb101 |
Posted - 06/07/2008 : 15:00:53
I think it's over 20 cents. Not many have the gumption to hand sort pennies in bulk. Whatever they get in pocket change, the they'll decide it't not worth it. I think you really have to have a love of coins, or PM in order to do this seriously. I bet everyone here just "has to!" pull the wheats becuase they have the bug. I've been grabbing every wheat I saw in pocket change for over 35 years. The notion of just calling a wheatie "copper" puts a knot in my stomach.I think about putting up $50 in wheaties for sale when I get them, but my gut instinct tells me to hoard them. When all the copper is gone from circulation, I'll likely get that .20 each. (Am Iwrong? _ I think I'll startr a thread....) |
| Saul Mine |
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 03:46:48
You know, we really ought to try to say something nice about Joe 6Pack now and then. After all, he is the guy who provides the profits we all hope to get.
I'll go first: Joe is famous for being a good provider!  |
| Saul Mine |
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 03:44:18
If the price of copper went to $X per pound, it would not occur to J6P that some pennies are made of it. If you told him copper pennies were worth X cents apiece, he would pull his change out of his pocket and look at it for a moment. Whether he had some pennies or not, he would decide it wasn't worth his time to save them. |
| JerrySpringer |
Posted - 05/07/2008 : 02:11:34
Don't forget nickels too. They would have a 30% over face-value premium just on the copper. I vote for 5 cents as a critical mass run of the Joe6P, btw.
Incidentally, one of my reasons for collecting/hoarding coins now is due to the interest rates we are offered. I tell my wife it is a psychological hedge to set aside pre-82 pennies and nickels because I am missing maybe 1.5% annual interest if I put the money in a bank CD or money market. At those returns, I will let the money sit idle in coins temporarily while I try to enjoy this new hobby.
One comment more I will make is that since I am an average person in many ways, I am assuming many people are starting to catch on to hoarding copper pennies. There are plenty of stories of copper and catalytic converter thefts in the news lately. It does not take much more publicizing of our economic funk to make people see that the paper dollar probably is not as safe to possess as some real metal, albeit in the common penny or nickel. |
| WilliamC |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 09:02:30
I'm thinking in the 5 to 10 cent range the mainstream media will start making a big deal about pennies being worth a nickle.
But until there is a good market for reselling the copper at a significant markup I don't think most people will want to hoard them.
And hopefully no one will start competing with Andy anytime soon selling sorters.
Even still time is running out. Sort sort sort while the copper is still out there! |
| TenBears |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 08:44:14
quote:
Originally posted by CoinHunter53562
most people are too lazy to do this.
Sad, but true. And, most people are too lazy to do much of anything. I bet there was a time, it must have been before the New Deal, when Americans were an industrious people. Laziness and sloth have crept into our society. (Now stepping down off soapbox while thinking of the taxes personally paid last week.) |
| CoinHunter53562 |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 08:17:19
I said 10 cents. I think the average person is too lazy to take on extra work like this, even with the copper cents being worth about 2.5 cents each and it being such a safe investment. I figure it takes me on average about 90 minutes per box between obtaining, hand sorting (with checking for errors/varieties), counting, and dumping the unwanted stuff. I do two boxes a week and get about 30%, so every week I add roughly 1500 copper cents to my small hoard. So my hoard increases in melt value about $37.50 every week for roughly 3 hours total of work. No it's not making me rich by any means, but I know there is alot of potential upside and I enjoy the thrill of the search. Heck, I even sort while watching my favorite tv shows. So that's why I said at the beginning that most people are too lazy to do this. They will sit their and watch their tv shows and do nothing else, while the people here will make good use of their free time and wisely obtain more copper. |
| Saul Mine |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 23:53:42
Well, I can tell you that I am smarter than the average dude, and I still had to have my nose rubbed in the facts to get my attention. I did in fact save every penny and nickel that crossed my fingers for ten months. I got four rolls of zincs and less than one roll each of coppers and nickels. I only got interested when I found out about the Ryedale sorter. There is no way I would have sorted a box of pennies by hand. And I'm still griping about having to roll them by hand. |
| Cody8404 |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 15:50:46
If the price of Copper Cents rises to 20¢ each keep in mind that the Zinc cents would also be worth about 9¢ each and would also be worth hoarding. The other coinage the U.S. uses, as it is mostly copper 97%, will be worth about twice face value as well.
If it reaches this point I anticipate Uncle Sam trying to convince us paper fractional currency will be less of a choking hazard than quarters or Uncle Sam would just give up producing coins altogether.
The ability to have a little savings in cents will be past and what people have will just remain in their piggy banks.
|
| HoardCopperByTheTon |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 14:25:29
If you can sort a box by eye in 45 minutes and and can return the rejects in 15 minutes then my hat is off to you.
I think the higher it goes the lower the percentage will be as more folks join the game. As percentages drop the return for Joe-Six-Pack would decrease.. even with the new higher price so he would drop out long before we got down to a 3% copper percentage. But the percentage will drop every year slightly even if the price never increases. There will never be a better time to hoard than right now.  |
| PennehChaos. |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 14:00:39
quote:
Originally posted by Ardent Listener
I don't know if they would be gone in 3 months or not, but if one copper cent will get them ten cents in clads or FRNs then coppers wouldn't last long. Melt ban or not.
That's my take as well... after all, it seems like every week you hear on the news about some idiot getting killed trying to steal live electrical wires, or falling off a building with a stolen air conditioner, or setting fire to an abandoned building trying to torch out the plumbing... Copper is like ghetto gold nowadays.
i think what it mostly comes down to is that *most* of the people who are indifferent to the laws aren't able to figure out a cheap way to melt down coinage, and the rest of them think that sorting coins is too much like an honest day's work! But if the potential profit gets high enough, opinions change...
Figure that even with 10% copper in a box, if you take a $25 box, get $22.50 in coinage, and have 250 copper cents... at $0.10/copper you've just doubled your money. If you can sort a box in, say, 45 minutes by eye, and use the other 15 minutes to amortize the collection and return time, you're making upwards of $20/hr with no payroll taxes. That'll get enough people off their butts to drop percentages down to 3-4% in a very short time, even without Brinks/Loomis/Coinstar getting into the picture. |
| misteroman |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 13:22:45
I said 5 cents as the economy is looking dimmer poor Joe is going to do anything to make a buck,or even a few pennies.I also I think it would be feasible for a Company to form,with employees and do it on a mass scale if it went above a nickel.
D |
| Ardent Listener |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 12:32:35
I don't know if they would be gone in 3 months or not, but if one copper cent will get them ten cents in clads or FRNs then coppers wouldn't last long. Melt ban or not. |
| topeka |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 10:26:49
Hoard,
If my number are correct..
if every person in the United States "hoarded" $5 worth of coppers there would be none left!
(300 million x 500 = 150 billion)
so it wouldn't require much effort from the general public to make this happen?
|
| swusc |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 09:53:55
What is the average time it takes a penny to complete one full cycle of going from say processers to general population back to the processers?
Would people have to hunt for them or would they just have to sort their own change?
I have a feeling most of the pennies produced are sitting in people's homes in coin jars.
-SWUSC |
| HoardCopperByTheTon |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 09:48:25
I voted other.. above 20 cents. Joe six-pack just isn't going to do it. Without the proper machinery it would take him too long and he wouldn't feel it was worth his time. He would have to deal with getting pennies, getting rid of zincs, selling the copper. He wouldn't be able to get full price for the copper because the buyers would want to buy it at a serious discount so they could make a good profit. The banks would probably start limiting the amount of pennies folks could get from them if lots of folks started asking for rolls and boxes. They wouldn't want to deal with all these no profit transactions and would want to preserve their penny stock for their merchant customers. |
| Ant |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 09:41:00
I voted twenty cents, too. Schlepping boxes of pennies around isn't hard work, but depending on the amount you process, it can take some time and planning. Most people aren't so big on making time and planning for things. Even if a penny is worth 10 cents, the average person is going to say, "Wow, pennies are worth a lot. But I hardly ever have change, I usually use my debit card. Maybe I should look into getting a bunch of pennies somehow." And then never doing it. |
| TenBears |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 09:27:20
I voted for 20 because I think it would take a lot to get the attention of the general public with regard to a penny. Case in point. This weekend Gemco was advertising in the Dallas Morning News to buy pre-1965 dimes, quarters and half-dollars. I don't remember the prices offered for the dime and quarter, but Gemco was offering in the $2.50 range for a 90% silver half dollar that has a melt value of over six dollars. So, Gemco was offering the "general public" less than half of what the 90% silver half dollar is worth. You know what, I bet Gemco does very well with the advertisement with the sheeple. All in all, the general public just isn't very knowledgeable about certain things. It might take the melt value of a copper penny reaching $1.00 before the general public catches on to the point to hoard copper out of circulation within 3 months. |
