Copper cents - to hoard or not to hoard?

[DanFromOhio]

I asked this question in another thread but not getting any answers and I kind of feel it is a thread topic on it's own...

I CRH mainly cents and nickels.
Regarding cents, is it really worth it to keep/hoard 1982 and earlier coppers right now?
I have not been, because of two reasons:
a) I don't like having that many sitting around that are really not worth much ( I seem to find quite a lot, some boxes are 40% or higher)
and b) I am not sure where, or if there ever will be any way to actually get more than FV for them....
Obviously I am not including any BU or oddities which i always keep, just talking about average circulated stuff, a lot of which is dirty/damaged...
I also tend to set aside some good condition 60's, but the mintages are so high...
What do other CRHers do?

 

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[Toecutter]

I recently acquired a large lot of old pennies from my mom, most are 82 an older, iv bin separating the coppers from the zinkens....
I read that the value in copper is worth 2 cents per penny not sure how old that article was though....
I am also curios what others recommend....

 

[No gold in NY]

Looks like copper is about 2.70 per pound. Three rolls of pennys is a pound or 1.50. If you could legally melt them I think you would probably lose money. I hoarded them for a while then took them to the bank.

 

[FormerTeller]

Depends on if you can afford to hoard, how much extra space you have, and how much trouble you are willing to take to sell them. Many people are selling them on eBay, Craigslist, etc except the returns are low.

 

[Tommybuckets]

My take is they are too much work for an uncertain payday. I save the wheat cents, errors, oddities and that's about it. I have saved some copper pennies when I got a few whole rolls but stopped looking at cents.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Preppers buy them on Ebay. When the end of the world happens they will rebuild all the copper pipes of the world!

 

[Hillbilly Prince]

Use them in shotguns?

 

[fistfulladirt]

I don’t bother with the copper coin, only the free copper material.
I’ve been scrapping since I was 12, there’s a lot of free copper out there for the taking (with permission), if you keep your eyes peeled.
I usually accumulate 100 lbs or so every couple years.