Copper penny stockpilers how much is "enough"?

Silverfinder99 said:
Not necessarily, in my opinion the penny as currency is worthless. Look how many you see every time you step out of your vehicle in any parking lot. People just don't care about them and I think we could round our purchases to a nickel without causing to much chaos. I really think they need to just quit making them altogether. Let the zincolns do there job until they turn to powder and in the mean time just start round purchases to the nearest nickel.
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Getting rid of the penny is an entirely different topic! I'm all for that. My comment was in regards to the current law. The government must provide a given amount of pennies for businesses to use. If they take one out of circulation they must replace it.
 

clarknau said:
Getting rid of the penny is an entirely different topic! I'm all for that. My comment was in regards to the current law. The government must provide a given amount of pennies for businesses to use. If they take one out of circulation they must replace it.
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Yeah I understand but the point I was trying make is do they actually do that? Just look at how careless Americans are with the penny. I personally know people who would rather just drop them on the ground than put them in their pocket. I really have a hard time believing the government actually replaces every penny accidentally or intentionally lost. In reality they probably over replace them with coins made of worthless metal. The money used to mint these useless ones would be a big savings in itself.
 

kfs said:
Eventually, storing away even pennies get expensive especially since there is no market for the copper because of the ban. What the heck, a billion might be a little over the top but what is another one or two 5 gallon buckets if you are up for it and will not trip over the buckets in the middle of the night.
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Well if you take 5 gallons and convert it into milliliters that becomes 18927.1 mL.

And if you use the volume for a cylinder: V = πr^2h where the radius of cent is 9.525mm, and the thickness, h, is 1.55mm, the volume of one cent is: V = 441.8mm^3, and converted to milliliters, thats :.4418mL.

Total volume/fractional volume = total number:
18927.1/.4418 = 42,840 cents.

Sadly we cannot melt cents, and the packing density is about 60%, so:
42,840*0.6 = 25,704 cents = $257.04 in a 5 gallon bucket.

(And yes, I know I'm a nerd)

HH
 

Eldar11 said:
Well if you take 5 gallons and convert it into milliliters that becomes 18927.1 mL.

And if you use the volume for a cylinder: V = πr^2h where the radius of cent is 9.525mm, and the thickness, h, is 1.55mm, the volume of one cent is: V = 441.8mm^3, and converted to milliliters, thats :.4418mL.

Total volume/fractional volume = total number:
18927.1/.4418 = 42,840 cents.

Sadly we cannot melt cents, and the packing density is about 60%, so:
42,840*0.6 = 25,704 cents = $257.04 in a 5 gallon bucket.

(And yes, I know I'm a nerd)

HH
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Right on Eldar. I found out the hard way, many years ago I filled a 5 gal. plastic gas jug (not the open top bucket) with copper pennies. A couple years later I got hard up, poured them out, rolled them then cashed them in, yep got $250 and change. Your math is good.
 

agme said:
Right on Eldar. I found out the hard way, many years ago I filled a 5 gal. plastic gas jug (not the open top bucket) with copper pennies. A couple years later I got hard up, poured them out, rolled them then cashed them in, yep got $250 and change. Your math is good.
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Huh, good to know the math works!
 

Silverfinder99 said:
Yeah that's what I figured but the EBAY thing makes since as long as there are people out there who hold on to the dream of the government doing something that would actually help the citizens its supposed to be looking out for.
Which brings up a thought. Since our dollar is losing value everyday because we don't have the gold to back it up why doesn't our government stock pile all these old pennies to back the dollar up since the copper content is more than what they're actually worth. It wouldn't be a total fix to our declineing dollar but it wouldnt hurt. Whats y'alls thoughts on this?
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That would possibly help if our dollar was backed by any sort of commodity. Our dollar's value is not based on gold, silver, or any other precious metal. It's value is based on the dollar itself and its current position as the world's reserve currency. This is called a FIAT currency. The only way it would work is if they hoarded the copper, melted it down, and sold it to someone who wanted to buy it (another country, private businesses, etc.) It would not help a thing if they just hoarded it for the copper value and put it in "reserves", as there is no such thing anymore. Hoarding it would not increase the value of our dollar.

Here are a couple of great videos (excerpts from the doucmentary "Zeitgeist: Addendum") that explains the way money works in a FIAT/Fractional Reserve banking system:
How Money Is Created (1 of 3) - YouTube
 

So I've heard rumored that theres some effort to try to work in copper pennies and nickels into the AOCS model, perhasp as the rumored "CTU unit" of $100 face of pennies. I came up with a chart showin what this might look like compared to units fo silver, copper kilos, etc and it pretty much go no response on the kitco forum, some prepper forums, etc. Overall no one seems to know how the penny would fit in as a coinage in a collapse of fiat or a turnback to the gold/silver/nickel/copper intristic=face standard. This leaves me wondering if no ones getting around to deciding what they would be worth compared to other metals if its even worth storing.
 

sheepdog_tx said:
So I've heard rumored that theres some effort to try to work in copper pennies and nickels into the AOCS model, perhasp as the rumored "CTU unit" of $100 face of pennies. I came up with a chart showin what this might look like compared to units fo silver, copper kilos, etc and it pretty much go no response on the kitco forum, some prepper forums, etc. Overall no one seems to know how the penny would fit in as a coinage in a collapse of fiat or a turnback to the gold/silver/nickel/copper intristic=face standard. This leaves me wondering if no ones getting around to deciding what they would be worth compared to other metals if its even worth storing.
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Maybe 1 CTU = 6 oz. silver? Right now 6 oz. silver at spot price is about $185, but if there's a currency collapse there would probably be nothing to stop you from melting pennies, at which point you might get 80% spot price due to their suboptimal composition.
 

I always pull the copper pennies from change. No where near a 5 gallon bucket full though. More like a liter soda bottle. I don't normally hunt for them though.
 

I'm working on processing what I have laying around and I'm up to $150 and probably about halfway done. Ugh.
 

thripp said:
Maybe 1 CTU = 6 oz. silver? Right now 6 oz. silver at spot price is about $185, but if there's a currency collapse there would probably be nothing to stop you from melting pennies, at which point you might get 80% spot price due to their suboptimal composition.
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so below is what I kind of imagined paired up with what the AOCS uses but also based just on spot but what seemed to make sense for units. Most of it is for "making change" not desirablity as small more precious units would always be prefered.

100 oz silver ingot - 5000 units
1oz gold - 2000 units
1/2 gold - 1000 units
1/4 gold - 500 units
5 silver oz round bar - 250 units
1/10th eagle of other gold round, coin, bar - 200 units
1/20th or pennyweight of gold - 100 units
3 silver oz rounds - 150 units
Eagle or .999 rounds or ingots (31.104 grams) - 50 units
Silver dollar (24.057 grams) - 39 units
Silver half 90% (11.250 grams) - 18 units
10 silver gram bar - 16 units
Silver Quarter (5.625 grams) - 9 units
5 silver gram bar - 8.5 units
Silver half 40% (4.60 grams) - 8 units
1 pound copper bar - 6 units
Silver pre 65 dime (2.250 grams) - 4 units
War nickel (1.750 grams) - 3 units
1 kilo copper ingot - 2 units
1 pound lead ingot - 2 units
Copper round 1 oz - 2 units
Copper round .5 oz - 1 unit
75%/25% Nickel - 1/10th of a unit (2 units per roll)
92% copper penny* - 1/30th of a unit (1.6 per roll or 5 per three rolls)
Zinc pennies or any non-silver US coin including quarters, dimes, etc. - 1/500th or less to 0 units.


There are bigger units but these are those I see as typical for bartering. Units have logical scale so they can be figured off the data below.

Few notes:
This doesn't take into account premiums such as Eagles vs generic ingots, collectibility of coinage, or even condition. This is purely looking at metal costs today and what they might stack up like. Threw in some various others for barter yard stick marks. Also does not take into discounted prices for scrap metal such as copper pipe, gold jewelry scrap, etc.

On copper AOCS vs pennies:
Copper is a base metal so it is weight in Avoidupois (AVDP or AV) 16 oz pound.

Pre 1982 U.S. Lincoln Cents uncirculated (NO WEAR) (except the 1943 Zinc Coated Steel) have a total weight of 3.11 grams. 95% is Copper and 5% is Zinc.
3.11g * 95% = 2.9545g per coin is pure Copper and it takes 453.59237 grams to equal 1 lb AVDP (16oz). Therefore, if you divide 453.59237 / 2.9545 = 153.525933322 or 154 pre 1982 Cents to equal 1 lb AV or 153.525933322 / 16 = 9.59537083262 or a little more than 9.6 cents to equal 1oz AV pure Copper


1983 to Date U.S. Cents uncirculated (NO WEAR) have a total weight of 2.5 grams. 2.5% is Copper and 97.5% is Zinc.
2.5g * 2.5% = .0625g per coin is pure Copper and it takes 453.59237 grams to equal 1 lb AVDP (16oz). therefore, if you divide 453.59237 / .0625 = 7257.47792 or 7257 Cents to equal 1 lb AV or 7257.47792 / 16 = 453.59237 or 453.5 cents to equal 1oz AV pure Copper.


Of course, you can convert the AV to Troy weight if so desired and with the math (basis 373.2417216 grams to 1 Troy lb or 31.1034768 grams to 1 Troy oz) you come up with:
pre 1982 U.S. Lincoln Cents (except 1943) 10.5263 cents to a Troy oz or 126 cents to a troy pound of pure Copper.
And 1983 to Date you get 497.6 cents to 1 troy oz or 5971 cents to a troy lb of pure Copper.
 

6920 said:
I always pull the copper pennies from change. No where near a 5 gallon bucket full though. More like a liter soda bottle. I don't normally hunt for them though.
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Every non zinc cent I pull out of circulation is a score in my book,
I've been at it for a while and have close to a liter of just 1982 coppers...
How many of the others, don't know... and I won't accept zincs as change.
" I AM GOOD COPPER--VALUE ME AS YOU PLEASE "
As true today as it was in 1737...
laughing7.gif

693165d1351417648t-copper-penny-stockpilers-how-much-enough-higley-copper.jpg
 

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fistfulladirt said:
Faster, easier, and cheaper to look for scrap. Just found 23 pounds worth of copper gutter along the road.
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My scrap finds have more than financed all my detecting equipment, and outvalue my 'Keeper' finds several times over,
A good month will get me more than $150 at the yard, a poor month gets $100. Location, location, location.
I still hoard my copper cents though :laughing7:
 

First I've heard of the AOCS, just visited the site and it seems to resemble the Von Nothaus barter system.
hopefully they won't meet the same fate for openly challenging the Federal Reserve. (they say they are just 'playing in the sandbox')
I bought in on an affiliates stock of LDs just after the raid, and now have to sell as they are commanding a premium. I am strictly a bullion holder.
Life in Prison for Federal Competition – Silver Death Sentencing « Sovereignthink
Guess i'm a bit off topic, HH All :hello:
 

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