Penny Hoarders

[jeffrey]

...Inside a shed next to his house, Henry has orange tubs filled with 200,000 pennies, and he spends hours sorting through roll after roll of the coins. But it's not just any and all pennies, Henry is only interested in those that are dated from 1982 and earlier because those are the coins made with 95 percent copper. A copper penny is worth more than other pennies -- now mostly made of zinc -- currently priced at $0.024...

If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash in on Thousands of Dollars - Yahoo! News

[bjl584]

That's interesting, but I don't really have the means to start melting down pennies. And, what if copper prices retreat? What are these people going to do with all the pennies that they paid more than face value for?

[disneysteve]

On a non-financial note, copper pennies are best for the souvenir penny presses you see at places like museums, zoos and theme parks. When you press a newer penny, the zinc shows through. With copper, that doesn't happen. When my daughter was younger, I always made sure to have a stock of those when we went to Disney World.

[jeffrey]

Copper pennies are selling for over face value on ebay -- $100 face value is currently going for $150 in this auction:

$100 FV 95% COPPER PENNY BULLION 68 lbs $218 Melt Value | eBay

and it seems that there are quite a few of these auctions all selling at over face value. certainly not worth the time and effort for me to do, but a way that anyone could make a few extra bucks if they wanted.