Treasure Classifieds Forum

Hello guys and gals, several years ago a fella name Karl Von Muller (his pen name of course) wrote a few books about treasure hunting. He wqas looking for gold in them there hills and such. Maybe by his last book number 6 or 7, I don't remember which it was but Karl (well respected as Examino Press - Colorado) said that the US Cent prior to 1982 (and that was maybe the first few months of minting because they switch to crapo in the middle of the mint year) were made mostly of copper and someday they would be worth more for their scarp value. Nowadays he was right! Today the scrap value of a US cent dated from 1909 to 1982 (probably the first few months of production) are worth 182 % of their value - today's coins from 1982 to 2014 are worth 54% of the face value in scrap.
here is a link to chcek out coin prices vs scrap value
http://www.coinflation.com

Example - the mercury dime that I found the other day is worth $1.21 cents US!
The Barber Half dollar the ED found the other day is worth $6.04 cents scrap value
The Ike dollar that I found in the coin machine is worth $5.28

Now back to the original question - does anyone save US Cents prior to 1981?

Tony. Yes I save them. I've got three mason jars full and only roll the zincs to give back to the bank. PM prices now are so low that I'm just holding on to them and hope I don't croak before they pop again. That 1904 is worth more as a numismatic coin at somewhere around $11.00 in Good condition and $39.00 in Fine. The 1878 Seated dime is also about $13.00 in poor condition. So numismatic vs. melt can be a wide gap at times.

Hello ODF. Ed - yeah the old coins are keepers for sure. I am in the same boat with my old finds - but I was curious about the small things - copper pennys!

I separate the coppers out and save them--have a 3# coffee can full ,,,nickels as well. not so long ago coinflation showed the pennies at 2.2 cents and the nickel at 7 cents and those days will return. The trouble is figuring out a way to retrieve the metal since it's a federal offense to melt them down--also not very economical to use more dollars in gas to melt them than you will get for them as scrap. It's a dilemma!!
I also save the double eagles , you know the ones with the $20 face value--I think they melt for about $1200 now.

Hello Dusty, I haven't looked in a very long time but folks sell copper of all kinds on ebay. Yes, you can buy US Cents prior to 1982 online on ebay....go figure and folks are buying them too. So don't go to the scrap man - sell baby sell!

I beleive you can scrap a certain amount of US Coins - like under - I don't remember 100 bucks - no that sounds wrong - probably you can't carry over $100 in coins to a foreign country

Yes, I save them and my little boys save any penny now.

Percentage wise they are double in value. That's why I don't have any hesitation when I get a penny/dime signal. Doing that last Saturday netted me 27 dimes and 31 pennies. More than half the pennies were before 1982. In that haul I found 4 Wheaties.

Hello Kajunman, you make a good point one