Stacking #1 Copper as a Precious Metal Investment

Hi, with copper scrap prices quite low considering it probably costs as much to mine it,
do scrappers stack their best copper as investment?

it appears that when scrapping there are many ways to turn over bits for cash,
the steel, #2 copper, copper bearing, alloy's, brass, stainless, high & low grade circuit boards and so on.

copper, just like silver, gold, platinum is used for investment purposes, so wouldn't it make sense to stack
your premium copper as if it was bullion?
there's no doubt to me that scrapping for metals is hard work, so in order to make it pay in the long run,
more then just pocket money, or money in the bank, investing in fine copper is a good investment.

Copper is not an endless resource, it will run out one day, just like all precious metals will.

my format is sorta like this, keep the nice clean, heavy #1 copper as bullion, sell everything else
and use 40% of that money to put into other bullion, mostly silver.
I believe silver is very under valued compared to gold, at the moment 1 ounce of gold buys 58 ounces of silver,
now traditionally, like the last 2000 years, 1oz gold bought 16oz silver, this has to balance back one day, silver is used a lot more then gold and will probably run out first.

copper being very cheap could easily double in value overnight, it would be an awful shame to learn everything you did with #1 copper could of been twice as much today wouldn't it?
I feel that the scrap yards would love #1 copper, so little work in melting it into a pure ingot to resell.
in comparison, mining copper to make a pure ingot takes so much resources.

If your scrapping big volumes then you could probably bypass the metal recycler all together for the copper.
i'd be melting and pouring my own ingots and selling to the market that uses them for manufacturing.

anyways, so yeah, bullion.
money can vanish overnight, whether in your bank or under your bed, lots of history to show how people
had to burn paper money for fuel it was worthless, physical precious metal, in your hand is always valuable.
converting some of your cash into bullion is where one day you get paid big time for your hard work.

I see many youtube vids of scrappers busting their back for the day, cashing in on the metal and buying a case of beer, this is crap, it's ok for a treat, but will keep you in the exact same position for ever.
at least take 10% of every cent you make from scrapping and invest it in precious metal for a bit of wealth protection
and something awesome to show for all you hard work over the years to come.

Right now i'm busy stacking 100 dollar bills...........Kinda scared of PM prices..........to high right now to invest..........Gold and silver will more than likely go down than up especially in the short term..........Oh well (trust me I thought about buying silver too)

How about bat poop? I remember a place in Tn who thought it was pretty valuable too

Guano huh???.... I heard there is a good market for it

That is actually kinda like my plan. I am saving all the good quality copper I get. However, right now, because there are so many scrappers in nc, and im not getting tonnage of scrap at the moment, I am using all the money I get from steel to buy supplies and gas, and alum and stainless to buy silver. I do think that investing in copper is a good idea though. Think about all the copper you can find in almost anything involving electronics. Copper is obviously, like anything we deal with, a finite resource. Short term, is it a good investment? Maybe, maybe not. I think long term, however, its very likely you will get more for your copper than you will now. Even if this isn't true, and copper prices stay pretty much the same, then you have an ace in the hole if you have a couple of bad months. In my opinion, a truck load of copper is a nice safety blanket.

Ben, Most yards over here will not look at a copper chunk that someone has melted down, too much risk that they put a piece of steel or lead in the middle. I can see saving some but check with your yard first to see if they would even buy it melted down.

If you really want to invest in copper - there's a far easier way. Buy a Ryedale sorter and get boxes of pennies from the bank. Run them through the sorter. Take the zinc pennies back to the bank, get more boxes. Rinse and repeat over and over.

In 1982 the composition of pennies changed from 95% copper/5% zinc to 97.5% zinc/2.5% copper. Stack up the 95% copper pennies until you run out of room. Looked at from a bullion perspective, $100 of copper pennies is worth $223.52 at the current spot price of copper 1909-1982 Lincoln Copper Penny Melt Value - Coinflation As a bonus, if the price of copper craters - you still have $100. The only way to lose is through inflation (and then, the bullion price would be higher than the face value anyway).

And if you don't want to stockpile it for yourself, sell it on eBay. There's plenty of people buying copper pennies for around twice face value right now.

Just don't try to melt it, or ship it out of the country for melting. That's highly illegal.

An even easier way is to just buy boxes of nickels from the bank. No sorting necessary. They're 75% copper and 25% nickel. Each one is currently worth slightly less than a nickel, but when (if) copper prices go back up, they'll be worth more as bullion than face value - just like the pennies. Of course, they're illegal to melt or export as well.

I looked up a Ryedale sorter. Starts at $500. Was expecting at least $1,000 minimum. I may have to look into this further.

I bought a coin counter for around $450 a few years ago. It retailed for $3,000.

yeah I do know about the copper pennies and that, obviously being in australia I can't get them,
otherwise I probably would.
we have no copper coins currently in circulation, so that's outta the question unfortunately.
yeah I know of people in the states with many tonnes of copper pennies.

the last good thing we had in circulation was a 50c piece in 1966, 80% silver, or about 1/3 of an oz, so it's melt value
is about $9 and sometimes people get them in change still.

yeah mech' I understand that could happen, after all, all the gold in fort knox has the very same problem ;)

Ben,

I do the exact same thing as a currency hedge. I keep all of nice clean chunks I run into and sell the rest and purchase more ore. I was going to re-invest in AG as well, but after reading quite a bit, it seemed Brass and Lead was a better hedge in more and varied scenarios.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scrapperben

Hi, with copper scrap prices quite low considering it probably costs as much to mine it,
do scrappers stack their best copper as investment?

it appears that when scrapping there are many ways to turn over bits for cash,
the steel, #2 copper, copper bearing, alloy's, brass, stainless, high & low grade circuit boards and so on.

copper, just like silver, gold, platinum is used for investment purposes, so wouldn't it make sense to stack
your premium copper as if it was bullion?
there's no doubt to me that scrapping for metals is hard work, so in order to make it pay in the long run,
more then just pocket money, or money in the bank, investing in fine copper is a good investment.

Copper is not an endless resource, it will run out one day, just like all precious metals will.

my format is sorta like this, keep the nice clean, heavy #1 copper as bullion, sell everything else
and use 40% of that money to put into other bullion, mostly silver.
I believe silver is very under valued compared to gold, at the moment 1 ounce of gold buys 58 ounces of silver,
now traditionally, like the last 2000 years, 1oz gold bought 16oz silver, this has to balance back one day, silver is used a lot more then gold and will probably run out first.

copper being very cheap could easily double in value overnight, it would be an awful shame to learn everything you did with #1 copper could of been twice as much today wouldn't it?
I feel that the scrap yards would love #1 copper, so little work in melting it into a pure ingot to resell.
in comparison, mining copper to make a pure ingot takes so much resources.

If your scrapping big volumes then you could probably bypass the metal recycler all together for the copper.
i'd be melting and pouring my own ingots and selling to the market that uses them for manufacturing.

anyways, so yeah, bullion.
money can vanish overnight, whether in your bank or under your bed, lots of history to show how people
had to burn paper money for fuel it was worthless, physical precious metal, in your hand is always valuable.
converting some of your cash into bullion is where one day you get paid big time for your hard work.

I see many youtube vids of scrappers busting their back for the day, cashing in on the metal and buying a case of beer, this is crap, it's ok for a treat, but will keep you in the exact same position for ever.
at least take 10% of every cent you make from scrapping and invest it in precious metal for a bit of wealth protection
and something awesome to show for all you hard work over the years to come.

---

I don't think i've ever read anything about brass, but in my short time scrapping, i'm growing very fond of my brass bits.
think i'll have to read up about it, what's with lead? only thing I can think to use lead for are fishing sinkers.
although I did think of building an underground bunker out of lead panels so I couldn't be spotted by alien satelight ships once.

lead-lined bunkers are good for radiation, but the aliens can still see you. they told me so.
you still need an AL foil hat to prevent mind control

Sorry, I didn't catch it that you are down under.

Brass and lead = ammunition

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scrapperben

I don't think i've ever read anything about brass, but in my short time scrapping, i'm growing very fond of my brass bits.
think i'll have to read up about it, what's with lead? only thing I can think to use lead for are fishing sinkers.
although I did think of building an underground bunker out of lead panels so I couldn't be spotted by alien satelight ships once.

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oh yeah, bullets, well I guess if shtf and everyone has a gun then bullets would be worth a bit.
thankfully we have gun laws so every man and his dog doesn't own a gun, infact most australians
live life without ever seeing a gun.

for survival purposes we stack willow, for cricket bats, awesome weapon once you develop the skill.
but had to laugh as yesterday I heard on the news of a police bust here in melb'
they raided the hell's angels club house, now the're pretty big, you know what the cops retrieved in that huge bust?
1 stun gun and a small bag of weed, now that's a laugh, I mean these big bad bikies, cops probably thought they'd hit the jackpot,
and they come out with a stupid stun gun? just waiting for the planes to come over one day, land and they
say, hmmm, nice place, we'll take it.

You know who loves gun laws?...politicians and criminals...Everyone should own one...and a foil hat...:cool:

I worked in AU for a few months in 2006. I talked with my co-workers extensively about Citizens owning guns etc. It was very interesting how profoundly different the Aussie culture and attitudes were on this one issue. I was in Sydney though, I don't know if rural areas would be different.

Nicest and most hospitable people in the world though, there wasn't a single night or weekend that I wasn't invited to the pub or someone's home....even after they found out I was a crazy gun toting ....fill in the blank....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scrapperben

oh yeah, bullets, well I guess if shtf and everyone has a gun then bullets would be worth a bit.
thankfully we have gun laws so every man and his dog doesn't own a gun, infact most australians
live life without ever seeing a gun.

for survival purposes we stack willow, for cricket bats, awesome weapon once you develop the skill.
but had to laugh as yesterday I heard on the news of a police bust here in melb'
they raided the hell's angels club house, now the're pretty big, you know what the cops retrieved in that huge bust?
1 stun gun and a small bag of weed, now that's a laugh, I mean these big bad bikies, cops probably thought they'd hit the jackpot,
and they come out with a stupid stun gun? just waiting for the planes to come over one day, land and they
say, hmmm, nice place, we'll take it.

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Brass and lead = ammunition[/QUOTE]
= the real precious metals lol
I didn't know people were buying copper pennies for double face value. Man, I get copper pennies by the bag full looking for rare coins. That has paid of a little, the most I have gotten from one is 150 bucks, but the copper penny thing? I bet I got 50 pounds of copper pennies right now, that I was just gonna take back to the bank to look for more rare coins. I might just sort everything and put it on ebay. Why not? money is money right? That being said, anyone paying double face value for pennies is, well, less than smart. I may be wrong, but copper is NOT a precious metal, just one that pays well for guys like us.
As I said before, i do save my copper. I do this because im betting that copper prices will be going up significantly. I make that bet based off research I have done. I could be COMPLETELY WRONG, and I may just have to eat it if I am. And, like I said in my previous post, its kinda like my golden parachute at the moment, I know I have x amount of copper and i can get y amount for it, so if i need it it's there. That and I think its purty :).
The thing with copper pennies is, unless you look forward to the Secret Service knocking at your door, saving them to smelt them is kinda pointless. Now, If you are betting that the U.S. will do away with pennies, then save up. After its not a circulated currency, you can do whatever with your pennies, and it is something than has been discussed in recent years. But don't buy them on ebay, get them at the bank, 50% of the pennies you get in a roll are high copper pennies, if not more. Go to the bank, sort your pennies, and sell them to the less than smart people who will buy them for more than a penny a piece.
All this being said, lets all sort our pennies, sell to the people who want them, and laugh all the way to the bank. ;) In the mean time I hope silver prices hit rock bottom, so I can buy it by the truck load and the next time it hits all time highs, cash in on my retirement.

I wish 50% of the pennies you get from a bank were pre-1982 95% copper. It's more like 15%.

i get about 25% copper pennys in customer wraped rolls
in northeast georgia

People also do this with US nickels.

It's actually like a free option call for Nickel/CU with no expiration.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by waredu

If you really want to invest in copper - there's a far easier way. Buy a Ryedale sorter and get boxes of pennies from the bank. Run them through the sorter. Take the zinc pennies back to the bank, get more boxes. Rinse and repeat over and over.

In 1982 the composition of pennies changed from 95% copper/5% zinc to 97.5% zinc/2.5% copper. Stack up the 95% copper pennies until you run out of room. Looked at from a bullion perspective, $100 of copper pennies is worth $223.52 at the current spot price of copper 1909-1982 Lincoln Copper Penny Melt Value - Coinflation As a bonus, if the price of copper craters - you still have $100. The only way to lose is through inflation (and then, the bullion price would be higher than the face value anyway).

And if you don't want to stockpile it for yourself, sell it on eBay. There's plenty of people buying copper pennies for around twice face value right now.

Just don't try to melt it, or ship it out of the country for melting. That's highly illegal.

An even easier way is to just buy boxes of nickels from the bank. No sorting necessary. They're 75% copper and 25% nickel. Each one is currently worth slightly less than a nickel, but when (if) copper prices go back up, they'll be worth more as bullion than face value - just like the pennies. Of course, they're illegal to melt or export as well.

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dont forget about 1942-1945 silver nickels as a possibility to find
you can tell the differance between 42 cupro-nickel and the silver 42 by the large mintmark above monticelo on the reverse

so looking back on this thread I was involved 10 years ago and my premise is the same.........I still trust the US dollar and am still trying to stack $100 bills they just won't buy as much..........I'm 46 and I figure it my lifetime I will not see the total crash of Western Society but they for sure are making things a little harder these days........of course childhood huddles up in some shack in Minnesota and seems to have no responsibilities or people he cares for or people that care for him........he claims he is good with it but does seem lonely especially on those cold nights

Lol....the American dream

I thought I'd add my two cents. First, copper ISN'T a precious metal- it is a base metal as are nickel, aluminum and zinc.

One thing I like about copper pennies is actually something that others might consider a negative. A full coffee can might have, say, 3,000 to 3,500 copper cents in it. At around 2.5 cents each, let's just say the can is currently worth about $80 or so. I purposely keep some in my house as a decoy. If I was a victim of a home invasion, I'd show the very heavy cans with just pennies to the armed invader and tell him he can take them. Chances are that he'd want something lighter that didn't take up so much space.

I personally like nickel even better than copper, and my favorite type of nickel is Canadian .999 nickels, which were made thru 1981 (with the exception of a few years such as war years). There are other countries such as France and South Africa which have had nickel coins as well. I don't care for U.S. nickels, regardless of melt value, because they are only 25% nickel. I once had something like $1,800 in U.S. nickels that I just cashed in at the bank as I lost patience with them as a decent investment, even over the long-term.

As electric vehicles are purchased in larger and larger quantities, the need for nickel should go up sharply. Even Elon Musk of Tesla has openly said he needs a LOT MORE NICKEL!

Regarding silver and gold, I personally like silver better as there is a lot of counterfeit gold out there, even in fake slabs, which is really disappointing. How do you test a coin in a slab without cracking open the slab? With silver I can do the drop test and hear the sound of silver. I can even hear the difference between 40% and 90% silver halves. By the way, of all types of silver, I like halves the best. Dimes can get bent fairly easily and are just too small to deal with IMHO. Also, it is a bit difficult to hear a dime when you drop it, unless it is very quiet and you have really good hearing. Another thing about halves- there are fewer coins to count for when you are selling, say, several thousand dollars of silver to someone. If I had dimes and quarters of any real quantity, I'd trade them for halves in a heartbeat. Silver dollars are nice, but I don't want to pay a big premium over melt value for something because it is popular (like Morgan dollars).

So there is my two cents about base and precious metals.

Oh yeah, I scrap copper wire a decent amount and don't mind having some of it in buckets in my back yard. Again, this can be used as a decoy in case someone who thinks I am rich tries to rob me. I'd just show them all the scraps in my backyard and watch them quietly say "Next" as they walk off.

Just noticed that this particular discussion thread has OVER 10,000 VIEWS and only 26 comments. Time for a few more people to step up and say something!

About 10-1/2 months since my last post on this thread with over 1,000 views. Still, NOBODY has said a peep since then. Ouch!

I meant to say 10,000 views, not 1,000.

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Originally Posted by recyclersteve

About 10-1/2 months since my last post on this thread with over 1,000 views. Still, NOBODY has said a peep since then. Ouch!

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The forum has mostly gone quiet over the years Steve. Most of the regulars either died or moved on to something else.

I see it in real life every day too. Scrapping is a trade just like any other trade. It's quite a bit of work to do it right and at the end of the day ... most individuals doing the scrapping don't make much. It's a volume business. You have to scale up to make any real money at it.

We're a dying breed. Not all that different from the tradesman who repaired shoes and made a living at it back in the 1960's. There used to be a man who went around from street to street with his cart that sharpened kitchen knives and scissors back in the day as well. Times change.

If you've noticed ... most of the posts that do appear these days ... aren't even relevant to the scrap metal trade anymore.

I'm perhaps the only scrap metal forum member who is able to declare himself a true rag and bone man. By this I see value in most waste be it of an organic or metals origin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag-and-bone_man

A rag and bone man is an opportunist taking advance of locally available waste, over the years if being a SMF member those who have followed my threads have noted a transition form scrap vehicles to my current occupation - processing organic waste, into tallow.

From a $20.00 dry rot RV trailer by extending the axles, using the frame from a mobile home a car trailer evolved, soon after from the proceeds earned purchased a diesel powered crane truck to which scrap vehicles could be double decked.

The main reason for the investment I was after the real value in the catalytic converters, I no longer pick up the scrap vehicles, just purchase the cats on a where is as is basis. After getting burnt on a major transaction by a refinery no longer ship my cats, I now remove the precious metals.

I currently have a sample of mixed PGM's sent out for assay, based on that assay the powers will be sold by the gram on my favourite global auction.

For my tallow project, purchased this 40 gallon Groen steam kettle and the meat grinder. I have a good supply of beef fat from a local abattoir. Tallow by the pound is worth more than copper, made into soap that value doubles.

This is the life of a true rag and bone man.

https://i.postimg.cc/Hnq7gj7M/k1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/mkYTPr5C/k2.jpg

The main breaker in a house panel, the silver pads are brazed with a silver solder alloyed with gold.

https://i.postimg.cc/pdWPc8LS/g1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/T1jFgNvH/g2.jpg