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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
 Posted - 04/08/2008 : 12:08:52
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U.S Pennies are not going to be a major source of copper if my numbers are right.
1959-1981 the U.S. Mint produced 141 billion pennies. (wheats, indians, and flying eagles are not very common in penny population)
at 95% copper that is about 920 million pounds of copper.
Annual U.S. use of copper is like 7,400 million pounds.
If every penny from 1959-1981 was melted, then you would be able to support the U.S. copper demand for about one month.
I would guess that it would be very hard for a large operation with setups accross the country to take it out more than 100 billion pennies as their % would drop to low to be profitable. (unless copper went way to high).
Scrap copper would slow a rise, but the amount of recoverable copper is limited.
New PVC pipes would cost money. Labor to switch them out cost money. What would copper have to get to for someone to be able to make money replacing copper pipes with PVC with all the cost tied to doing it?
Once the mint can produce (steel or whatever) pennies for around 1/2 cent each. They will let Jackson Metals (who ever) melt the pre 1981 stock. They have no reason not to let them. Jackson Metals will employee people, make money for the local economy, the Mint will make money by producing replacement pennies, more employees need to make those pennies, steel industry will like the new customer, this will create/save steel industry jobs, and so on.
Once they change the make up of the penny, then copper pennies will be pulled out of the penny population by a big outfit. All of the small time hoarders will have little affect. Even our big hoarders would be small time in this sorting world.
-SWUSC |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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Art Tatum
Penny Collector Member
USA
400 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2008 : 12:15:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Ardent Listener
quote:
Originally posted by Art Tatum
copper will never "take off" my man. there is millions of tons of it to mine everywhere in the World.It's only a base metal and not to forget that!
"It's only a base metal." Thems fighten words around here Art.  True, copper is a base metal but it's a base metal that has been used as a monetary metal through out history and it is a base metal that the expanding industrial world's demand continues to exceed mining and refining production. Copper becomes more precious every day.
hey,I'm with you in hoping it goes through the roof but its not likely and we all know it! |
my machine is running! |
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$4 Copper the tipping point ?
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