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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
 Posted - 10/04/2008 : 21:15:33
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I'm still around, it's just that nobody is buying copper pennies so I haven't sorted any. It looks like gold is the better investment at the moment so I've been buying gold instead. My sorter is still set up and my wrapping machine is working now, but I'm just idling until the market picks up again.
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A penny sorted is a penny earned!
Please use tinyurl.com to post links. Long links make posts hard to read. |
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n/a
deleted
146 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2008 : 21:33:30
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Chart that may make you happy
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Edited by - n/a on 10/04/2008 21:33:56 |
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fb101
Administrator
USA
2856 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2008 : 22:33:51
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| here's hoping! |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2008 : 00:10:49
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quote:
Originally posted by Saul Mine
I'm still around, it's just that nobody is buying copper pennies so I haven't sorted any. It looks like gold is the better investment at the moment so I've been buying gold instead. My sorter is still set up and my wrapping machine is working now, but I'm just idling until the market picks up again.
Now is not the time to idle.. now is the time to stock up for when the market turns. 
Which wrapping machine did you get? |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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Computer Jones
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1112 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2008 : 11:32:51
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If you're set up to sort (and wrap!), why not sort?
You might just avoid getting a cramp in your leg kicking yourself in the a$$, should hind sight provide sorting might have been a worthwhile endeavor. |
There's profit if you melt things!!
8{> |
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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2008 : 04:36:11
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Hoard, it's here: You must be logged in to see this link.
I use the ratio of gold price to silver price to decide what to invest in. If the GSR is over 60 or so, it's time to buy silver. Above 70 is time to sell gold to buy silver. Below 50 is the opposite. Lately the ratio of market prices (not spot) is running below 50, so it's time to buy gold but a lousy time to sell silver. Silver and copper run a constant ratio of 5:1 so a poor time to buy silver is a poor time to buy copper. But more importantly my idea when I got into this was to sell the copper pennies to finance buying more pennies, doing it as a self supporting hobby. Nobody is buying pennies now, so it's not self supporting. So I'm idling until conditions improve. |
A penny sorted is a penny earned!
Please use tinyurl.com to post links. Long links make posts hard to read. |
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NotABigDeal
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2008 : 06:07:37
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There are always buyers. Just depends on how much you want....
Deal |
Live free or die.
Plain and simple.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your council or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams |
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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2009 : 23:50:48
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The guys on the silver forum asked me to make a custom ingot for them. I bravely accepted the job. I had taken a foundry class back in 1962 and thought I knew something. I knew how to make sand molds and I thought I could make ingots with just my little propane shop torch. Well, here it is three months later and a thousand bux worth of equipment and I am finally at the point of making some decent ingots. The biggest problem was that I was trying to engrave the forum logo into a pattern from which to make a sand mold. That requires all lines to be engraved at a large angle, 45 to 60 degrees, and all the engravers are accustomed to making straight sided cuts as required for a different business. The sand won't let go of the pattern if the sides are straight. And it took a while to figure out that the engraving was not right. So this dragged on, failure after failure, until one guy announced he had found an outfit that would make a custom steel stamp. I could pour an ingot any way I knew how and stamp the logo into it.
So with that project nearing completion, the sysop suggested that I could use my newly built shop and recently acquired experience to make 5 oz ingots. He thought there would be a novelty market for the 5 oz size. I thought about it and decided he was kidding himself and me. People will not pay a premium for a 5 oz ingot unless it has a picture of Marilyn Monroe on it.
So it occurred to me that I can build an electrolytic tank to refine copper to four nines purity and then melt it in an induction furnace, with a vacuum chamber to prevent oxide formation. If you melt copper any other way you don't have pure copper any more. That's why there is no art copper business. Anything you see made of copper was bought from a manufacturer and sawed or beaten into shape, not cast. So if my plan works I will have the world's only poured loaf style copper ingot!
A vacuum is awfully easy. Go to any plumbing shop and buy an aspirator and you have a cheap good vacuum pump. Electrolytic refining is a simple process. Not easy, but simple. An induction furnace is not simple and not cheap, but I have found a way to do it with a microwave oven. It involves specially made crucibles using a patented mixture of fireclay, graphite, and magnetite. I got the information here:
You must be logged in to see this link.
The only part I'm not sure about is the vacuum chamber. I figure to start with a half gallon mason jar, assuming the vacuum will insulate it from the hot copper. If the glass gets too hot and breaks, I'll have to invent something else. (FYI, a cheap vacuum bottle costs several hundred bux.)
So now I (maybe) have a source of income from my hobby, and I will again be sorting pennies. I figure most of my copper will come from a scrap dealer, but I will take some of the income from this mighty deed that I do and buy pennies and stockpile them until the mint lifts its asinine restrictions. The mint doesn't make laws, and the federal government has no jurisdiction over what I do with my property. But there is no profit in arguing with a bunch of goons, so I will stockpile the pennies until the mint drops its silly rule. |
A penny sorted is a penny earned!
Please use tinyurl.com to post links. Long links make posts hard to read. |
Edited by - Saul Mine on 02/25/2009 00:00:58 |
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NotABigDeal
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2009 : 06:17:05
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I wish you the best of luck. Keep us informed.
Deal |
Live free or die.
Plain and simple.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your council or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams |
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Kurr
1000+ Penny Miser Member
2906 Posts |
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Market Harmony
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1274 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2009 : 09:57:11
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Hi Saul Mine,
I've got a lot of experience in casting. I use a melting furnace, molds, and custom made stamps. Lost wax casting techniques are best for jewelry, but may have a use if you are trying to cast an ingot for the silver forum. The problem becomes production volume.
I'm sure you know that #1 scrap copper is 99.95% pure. Regarding the oxygen pick-up and vacuum degassing that you had discussed: my personal opinion is that it is not necessary. All you need to do is use carbon on top of the melt. It will absorb any oxygen that gets into the furnace before the copper will absorb it. Besides, unless you are pouring in an oxygen free environment, or using argon gas shielding, the pouring of copper will pick up oxygen no matter what. Even if you are pouring with argon gas shielding, you will have to bottom pour, which requires a whole other set of equipment and refractories.
I don't want to discourage you, because I strongly feel that the more producers of copper bullion, the better. It is a small industry, and growing it will require innovators and different product lines.
btw: You won't be the only one around here casting ingots of copper, silver, and gold 
If you have any questions, feel free to email me.
Kind Regards,
Michael |
goto the new and improved realcent: http://realcent.org |
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Kurr
1000+ Penny Miser Member
2906 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2009 : 12:25:38
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I don't want to hijack a thread on idling, he he, but if the silver to copper ratio is supposed to be a constant 5:1 shouldn't copper be at 2.79 or so rather than the 1.49 it's currently at?
I would really like to learn how to trade on the ratio it has always seemed interesting to me. Perhaps TPTB are manipulating the copper price to keep us and the general public from hoarding and re-emphasize the value of bullion coins in common trade and commerce while demonstrating the undeniable weakness of the fiat dollar in comparison. I have heard in several countries they have about hoarded coins out of circulation.
Anyway, I was just curious about the ratios. |
The silver [is] mine, and the gold [is] mine, saith the LORD of hosts. Hag 2:8 [/b]
He created it. He controls it. He gave it to us for His use. Why did we turn from sound scriptural currency that PROTECTS us?
KJV Bible w/ Strong's Concordance: http://www.blueletterbible.org/
The book of The Hundreds: http://www.land.netonecom.net/tlp/ref/boh/bookOfTheHundreds_v4.1.pdf
The Two Republics: http://www.whitehorsemedia.com/docs/THE_TWO_REPUBLICS.pdf
Good reading: http://ecclesia.org/truth/government.html
A number of people are educated beyond, sometimes way beyond, their intelligence. - Tenbears
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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2009 : 14:15:58
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| Thanks for the tip, I will try the carbon on top. Getting a vacuum bell that doesn't break is difficult, and vacuum bells are VERY expensive. I didn't really believe a mason jar would be strong enough. I haven't started on this at all, I'm still cranking out souvenir bars for the silver forum. Learning as I go. For instance I learned this week that if a crucible gets wet I have to dry it in an oven before I use it again. |
A penny sorted is a penny earned!
Please use tinyurl.com to post links. Long links make posts hard to read. |
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Idling
Forum Locked
