A copper cent has well over two cents' worth of copper in it, as of today's close — 2.6 cents, actually. Even the “cheap” zinc cents are almost actually worth 1 cent in the metal content. That's how far the base metals have rallied recently.
This guy has engineered a machine that separates the wheat (wheat cents and other pre-1982 cents) from the chaff. Looks like it does a great job!
It's not clear exactly how he does it from the video, but I think he has to separate them by mass with either a carefully calibrated fulcrum or spring. Both cents are the same size and are both non-magnetic. The 95% copper cents are 3.1 grams, but the 97.5% zinc cents are 2.5 grams. That's only 600 mg difference, and it didn't look like it missed even once.
Even as the machine is now, it can blow through cents about ten times faster than I can by just looking at the dates.
I can see these cents getting harder and harder to find. As Gresham's Law states, “Bad money drives good money out of circulation!”
THis is a great thing! I thought about something like this myself. I would go to the bank, get a hundred dollars worth of pennies and sort through them, taking the newer pennies right back. The only problem I see if finding someone to buy them… because I am not destroying them.
That's pretty friggin' cool. I wonder how he does it… Of course, it's possible that it sorts them at random, and then he flips a little switch off camera to make the go left or right when he's "proving" that it works.
It may come to pass that people will buy pennies 1982 and earlier for a premium — just like pre-1965 dimes, quarters, and half-dollars are going for about 1,000% face value.
Frankly, the value of the metal (copper) is just too low for copper-penny-hoarding to work…yet. Copper still has a ways to go before it becomes cost effective to melt down pennies for their metal content — for no other reason than the sheer weight involved in the operation.
This past month I sorted through $100 in pennies from circulation, and out of those, almost exactly 20% were from before 1982.
Okay, let's say you get your hands on FIVE TONS of pennies – that's 10,000 pounds, or approx. 1.75 million pennies (80% at 2.5g, 20% at 3.11g). You sort through those coins and come up with 4 tons of zinc cents and 1 ton of copper cents.
That 1 ton (2000 pounds) of copper cents, or approx. 300,000 pennies (145 pennies per pound). Face value of $3000, melt value of around $7100 in copper, or a net profit of $4100.
That's $4100 in profit, after sorting through FIVE TONS of pennies. That does not include the cost of obtaining the coins, sorting, transportation, cashing in the zinc cents, labor, arbitrage, etc. Would there be any profit left after all costs are considered?
Oh, I'm sure there will come a day when copper prices rise high enough that cherrypicking copper out of pocket change will actually be profitable — but we're still a ways off from that day. How high will copper have to go before we *really* see pre-1982 cents disappearing from our pocket change (like silver did back in the mid-sixties)? Five dollars a pound? Ten dollars? More? It will happen eventually, but we're not there yet.
I think the key is to keep a close eye on companies like COINSTAR, or some other large company that is already dealing with large volumes of coins. They'll be the first that will be able to eke out a profit with such an operation.
(Personally, I'm more interested in the possibility of nickel-hoarding. No sorting necessary, and the value of the metal in a nickel-coin is more-valuable-by-weight than the penny. The per-coin costs of transportation, storage, labor, etc. on melting nickels for their metal is much lower for each coin (compared to pennies).)
M High, great comment. Thank you!
Hadn't thought about the Coinstar angle; it certainly must have crossed their mind.
In the meantime, I'd be happy with having the banks offer me 1.5 cents per penny. They've done that in the past when there was a penny shortage, but not to the same extent: 55 cents per roll.
Great article. There are a lot of people saving the pre-1982 copper cents. Some of us are even going to the bank and getting boxes of cents to sort through. Eventually, I think copper cents will be traded as bullion the way the old silver coins are now. The link on my name has is a forum where this topic is being discussed.
I am presently buying pre-1982 pennies. I will pay .75 cents per roll. Email me at for more info. … Thanks
Ron
I am presently buying pre-1982 pennies. I will pay .75 cents per roll. Email me at ibuypennies (at)Gmail(.)com for more info. … Thanks
Ron
i sell $25 bank boxes of 50 roll pre-82 95%cu email me for prices and shipping info.
this will disappear just like the silver coinage of the days.
bentleyt2@comcast.net
I have two mint bags of 1980 pennies never opened. Total 10,000 pennies…whats the value?
I have two mint bags of 1980 pennies never opened. Total 10,000 pennies…whats the value?
$260.00 as of today, 4-27-2008
Rick Frase
The machine is called a Ryedale, it sorts the copper pennies from the zinc pennies by metal content, not weight.
Copper hoarding CAN work and IS working among many of us who realize that paper money has no inherent value and is gradually and certainly losing value. A dollar isn't worth what it used to be. But 154 pennies will always give you a pound of copper no matter how low the value of the dollar goes. You talk about the potential profit from sorting one ton of copper pennies out of five tons of coins as if it's a money-losing proposition, when in fact those of us who are hoarding copper pennies are simply using our time to do something that will give us a long-term safety net, an investment in tangible copper that will not lose its copper content. We could spend our time doing things that won't have any sort of tangible return–watching TV, engaging in other hobbies, spending mindless hours surfing the Internet–but we choose instead to focus on what will bring us a greater financial return. Come hang out with us at http://realcent.forumco.com and see what we're all about. You just might start thinking differently. 😉
speaking of pennies, i collect certain dates mostly prior to 1940, not for the copper but for certain dates that are rare. It is getting harder and harder to find a hoard of pennies that has not been cleaned out of the good dates. If anyone has a volume of pennies prior to 1940 I would pay .03 cants for them….if they have not been searched.
do you have any pennies that you have purchased that are wheat? If so I am looking for bags of 5000 each. I would like to make a deal with you to search through the wheats if you are not a collector and then return what I do not pull out. send ma a mail and let me know what you think. ron
If you have 2 mint bags, you may get more than the copper content by selling them to a coin dealer. Being uncirculated, they may be worth as much as .05 cents or perhaps more. Just check with a dealer.
I started saving pre-1982 back in 1989 just because it seemed like a good idea. I also bought a 5000 bag of wheats that had great coins in it. I paid $90 for it back then.
if you want to know more about copper penny sorting go to my website
http://www.crazycoinguy.com
it will tell you everything you need to know