Any boardies into hoarding copper pennies and or buying copper ingots/bars?

From these boards as well as talking to people at auctions it seems we all got multiple hustles whether it be scrapping, resale, flea markets, etc, always looking for an angle to make some money.

Obviously we all know about silver coins but curious if anyone else is interested in copper like myself? Copper prices are going up, copper pennies are no longer being made but not many really care to take them out of circulation as its not quite worth it yet.

I guess the Canadian government is taking and out of circulation the rest of the old copper pennies they have and melting them so maybe not as crazy as it sounds though that is not necessarily to say its practical for a single person but I'm still kinda intrigued anyway

I've heard China, India and Brazil are upping their copper purchases or use between x2 and x4 in the next two years. I started buying $25 boxes of pennies at the bank and  yanking all the pre '82s. I actually used some parts out of vending and slot machines I've found in units to make a sorting machine with a comparitor from an old vending machine that I  rewired. Makes soritng a little quicker

Anyhow, just curious if I'm the only crazy one or if anyone else is into this.

http://www.youtube.com/user/rulesforrebels#p/u/8/XX6GOnipo1g

Well now that I know the copper prices are going up I may start doing that. Wondering however how this will apply to pennies. Giving that most people look at pennies (regardless of pure copper or not) as worthless trash. Giving out $2.00 in pennies and expecting $8 or what ever it currently is for copper prices is hard to stomach. lol. Just my opinion, but who knows the copper pennies may be the next gold mine.

Could make Cents!!

I'm still not completely sold on this being a practical idea but I have started hoarding copper pennies. I figure it's basically a no lose proposition. Pennies will always be worth at least a penny so even if this turns out to be nothing you can still bring your pennies back to the bank and recoup your origional investment.

With current copper prices a penny is worth just shy of 3 cents problem being the government has a melt ban so you can't sell yoru copper as scrap or melt it into ingots or bars. That said you can still trade them the same way people are buying and selling junk silver at coin shops. Currently on ebay you can get about $200 for $100 face value of pennies

I was buying boxes from bank and trying to get silver coins and was doing decent for a while but after dropping 3k on boxes and finding one silver half dollar I gave up. I also recently heard 99% of the silver coins is out of circulation so kinda gave up on the silver.


Th

I never really had an interest in coin collectin befor and still am not going to become an avid coin collector but through sorting coppers you come across wheat pennies, indian heads, and even steel and bronze pennies as well as error coins.

These can be worth money and it is interesting comming across them as well.

If anyone is at all interested in this subject there's plenty of youtube videos and some interseting sites like realcent and coinflation.

I tend to come across large jars of change in one out of every 3 or 4 units so always sorting those for copper and silver

I never really had an interest in coin collectin befor and still am not going to become an avid coin collector but through sorting coppers you come across wheat pennies, indian heads, and even steel and bronze pennies as well as error coins.

These can be worth money and it is interesting comming across them as well.

If anyone is at all interested in this subject there's plenty of youtube videos and some interseting sites like realcent and coinflation.

I tend to come across large jars of change in one out of every 3 or 4 units so always sorting those for copper and silver

Im not much of a collector of currency. Although after starting in the auction business I have started sorting through the change and bills. Mostly I have foreign currency. Lots of canadian and mexican coins. Have a few coins from Germany and one or two from spain. Also have two 50 Reichmark bills from the WWII era. Got a small assortment of US coins dating as far back as 1893. And to add to the collection I have a one dollar silver note from 1957. As well as a 5 pesos bill from Chichuahua Mexico circulated in 1915.

Sadly none of these are worth very much at the present time. Hoping that all of these will be worth some good change once I pass it down to my kids or their kids.

lol - I've been doing this for years.  My daughters are into sorting coins now.  Oldest just found a 1891 IHC.

Even with prices of copper going down from Jan and July's high it's still a dollar higher then it was this time last year.

I love that sorting machine.  I keep thinking of buying one.

Hoarding, Yes!  Buying ingots/bars, No!

Copper IMO isnt worth the time.  I am more into buying/collecting/saving/finding/etc. Silver coins and bars.

Hoarding, Yes!  Buying ingots/bars, No!

Copper IMO isnt worth the time.  I am more into buying/collecting/saving/finding/etc. Silver coins and bars.

I just found a 1944 silver quarter in some pocket change the other day but i've given up on buying boxes looking for silver. I've heard ther's less than 1% left. I went through about 3k-4k and found one silver dollar recently and that was the end for me. On the flip side however I did have a buddy who bought 1k worth and found 18 halves in there. its all about getting lucky and striking a good vain so to speak. Lately i have been doing pretty poorly and gave up though.

I built this machine to sort copper pennies...


still gotta set up an auto hopper but havnt gotten around to it.

I watched the video the first time I found this thread.  Loved that machine you made.  Or did you order the DIY kit?

Looking into getting a coin acceptors or such and seeing if can make me one for not just pennies but "world" coins.  Doubt it but may try.

i have since built a few for some friends. i found my origional comparator in an old vending machine i found in a unit but ive since bought comparators from a vending supply company. If I buy a couple I get them for $15.95 and then its just scrap wood for the frame and an old cell phone charger to power it.

when you say world coins are you talking about searching old mexico centavos or pecos and canadian coins and stuff for silver content? i think swiss had high silver for a while too.

im no expert on vending stuff but i think some machines work with a magnet but i think most send an electric pulse throgh teh coin and compares it to the sample. the machine i guess recognizes if a coin is the same or not. if you have a silver us coin at 90% i imagine it will only pull out other 90% silver coins. if you had one of the canadian coins with 93% silver i imagine it would get rejected wtih all the other copper and zinc b/c though it is silver its not the same as the sample coin. same thing if your sorting silvers youll get the 90% but miss out on all the 40%.

It would help make sorting fast even with that flaw though. also b/c its pretty quick to sort using a mchine, especially if you have an auto hopper which i need badly, but anyhow b/c its quick you could change the sample cion and double or triple sort and it will still be much faster than hand sorting.

I've only found 1 silver coin in the 15 lbs of world coins I've purchased.  99% of the time they have been searched already.  What I'd like to do is pull out the other copper coins, etc.

You mind telling me which coin vendor you use?  I was looking at a few websites last night but everything was wholesale and you have to hit a distributor up.  Scrap wood, jugs, and all that I have everywhere around my house and in my barn/sheds.

Craig, let me dig up my invoice and I'll give you the web address of who I bought mine from, at work just tried finding them on google and had no luck.

Here's one for just $19.95, not a bad price, it is a chinese model which many people complain about, I have a chinese model I bought a while back and though not 100% accurate after adjusting the vf tuning it was over 99.5% accurate.

arcadespareparts.com/arcade_parts/coin_mechs/electronic_coin_comparator/12905.html

There's a guy on ebay who sells something called the coinalyzer its pretty reasonable at like $34 and it comes prewired for you, wired better than my cell phone way of doing it but they both work the same his is probably just prettier I guess more finished look. Then you build your own frame.

if your serious about copper you gotta get a rydale, if you've never heard of them check it out on ebay they are awesome

they are awesome but they are also $500 and $800 depending on model. They also sell one called the sniper or ace which is a lil over $100 but it has no hopper so really no better than my machine aside from having a nice slide and looking more finished.