Keep Your Copper Pennies!

This 1973 cent, still found in pocket
change, holds almost 3 cents worth
 of copper at current spot value!

Not too long ago, when I was much younger, copper was going for about 35 or 45 cents per pound at the scrap yard. I gathered up quite a bit of scrap copper over the years for the scrap yards. But now copper is about ten times higher. In fact, as of the day of this post, copper is at US$4.2345. That means one copper penny holds nearly 3 cents worth of copper! Imagine a coin still available in circulation that is actually valued at nearly 3 times face value. Will copper continue to rise? Ten years from now will that copper cent be worth 10 times face value? Or even more?

How much does it cost you to get a 95% pure copper penny? Well, right now if you take the time to look at your pocket change you can find some of them for free, or rather for 1 cent. And if the bad times come and you have to break into the bank you can always spend them right? But I don't think you will want to spend them once you realize their value.

In 1982 the US Mint finally decided to change the composition of the penny because copper was getting too costly. It had reached the point to where the cost of minting a one cent coin was higher than a penny. The intrinsic metal value of the US penny had exceeded the face value. It reminds us of the situation with silver coins in 1964. In fact copper is right now at the same levels as silver was not too long ago.