The thought just occurred to me that 147 copper cents contain one pound of copper--thus making $1.47 the break-even price for copperheads--but what's the break-even price for zinc?
It is a little complicated because you have to factor in the price of both metals, but assuming that the copper price stays the same, zincs should be break even at
(2.5 grams total weight * .025 parts cu * .00842 price of copper per gram) + (2.5 grams total weight* .975 parts zn * unknown price of zinc per gram) = .01
Which figures out that zinc pennies are worth .01 cents each when cu is about $3.82 a pound and zinc is about $1.76 a pound.
Or if you just assume that zincs are 100% zinc, it takes about 181-182 (453.59 grams per pound / 2.5 grams per penny) of them to make a pound so zinc at $1.81 is break even.
Copper/zinc break-even prices for pennies
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Posted - 03/05/2008 : 05:47:06
