No Copper Cents

[RWBILLER]

Boy, I have never heard of that one - you would think you would get about 20% copper.
roger

[hasfam]

I started saving the copper the beginning of this year thinking it might be wise. But I was finding a pretty large percentage of coppers in my boxes and they were piling up pretty fast. Then I heard from somewhere that you couldn't sell the pennies for melt and I just thought that hoarding all these dirty pennies was kind of ridiculous so I cashed them in. I wouldn't mind saving them, byt honestly don't understand the benefit of it. can someone explain?
Rock

[tmawhit]

Yep, those were from BOA too. Brinks boxes.

[legend]

It's okay...

to make stuff from pennies. Jewelry and such seems to be allowed, but maybe I wouldn't myself cause of the ban. I would make a copper sink, or a mailbox or such, but only from pennies I knew won't be worth squat ever. Like maybe 60's and 70's cents. Wait, a 1972 can be worth lots? Uh oh, and wait, a 1969 sometimes commands a premium? I guess why I keep all mine is that a while back Jean hit on a new find, and I ended up re searching mine all over again. This happens every couple of days or weeks. Truth is, we will never run out of new errors to look for so long as Billy, Bob and Chuck are breathing. God willing, that's forever. Okay by me. Get your loops fired up, folks.

[BadThad]

Over time there will be virtually no more copper cents in circulation.

[snowman]

i thought the current avg of coppers in a box is 20-25%

with a drop of 3% a year - bet in the past couple years this avg has
accelerated some

has anyone received more than 25% avg in box ?

[hasfam]

Over time there will be virtually no more copper cents in circulation.

I don't know. I'm sceptical because I've been hearing this for decades, especially in 1982-1983. Also, There are cycles that occur in almost everything including coin collecting. Take bulk wheat cents for instance. Over the past 30 years, there seemed to be talk on some occasions of wheats dissapearing, drying up if you will. Everybody gets a little paranoid then a couple of years later, billions (maybe millions) show up again. Personally, I think if everybody who was hoarding copper and wheat cents turned them in, we could pay off the national debt.
Just some thoughts,
Rock

[mustbebob]

We hear of people removing copper coins, but we also hear of people digging into their piggy banks and putting more of the older coinage back into circulation. I do not believe we can really assess a percentage based on this fact. I am ging through a box right now that has at least a 50-50 ratio of copper to zinc. On the other hand, another box I had just finished with has less than 20% copper coins in it.

[1sgret]

I have to agree with Bob. It is the luck of the draw. Alot depends on where you live, population, businesses, number of Banks etc.

I search to much in my spare time to stop and separate to get a ratio of copper/zinc coins in a box. (LOL)

[hasfam]

I search to much in my spare time to stop and separate to get a ratio of copper/zinc coins in a box. (LOL)

Same here.
Rock

[JeanK]

Yesterday I bought a box of circulated cents from my bank and thought I would open all the rolls and sort them out so I can give an account of the copper cents.
There was one each of the coins that do not have the x plus a number.
44d, 44s x2; 45d; 46d; 47p; 48p; 50d; 51s; 56p; 56d; 56d; 57d; 58d x3; wheat cents.
60p, 60d; 61p, 61d x2; 62d x2, 62p x2; 63p x2; 64p x6, 64d x7; 65p x4; 67p x14; 68d x7, 68s x3; 69p x4, 69d x5, 69s x3.
70p x5, 70d x2, 70s x6; 71p x1, 71d x6, 71s x5; 72p x2, 72d x7, 72s x2; 73p x5, 73d x7, 73s x3; 74p x2, 74d x18, 74s x2; 75p x1, 75d x27, no S; 76p x4, 76d x28, 76s none; 77p x3, 77d x22, 77s none; 78p x9, 78d x23, 78s none.
80p x27, 80d x16; 81p x26, 81p x15; 82p x15, 82d x4.
Plus 12 badly corroded coppers; about 2 dozen 2008 mixed; no 2009 not a surprise; and no Canadians, which did surprise me.

Just thought I would share this... and, no, I will not sort and count all the zincolns.
Thanks,
Jean

[legend]

That's a cool box list.

Wish my boxes gave up some of the 40's dates!