Keep an Eye on Nickel

One thing that I like to do every once and a while along with my copper hoarding is pick up a few rolls of nickels and keep just for speculation purposes. Right now the Jefferson Nickel is worth 5.5 cents or just over half a cent more than its face value. The best thing about hoarding nickels is the only sorting you have to do is if you are searching for old dates or wartime nickels. Other than that, the composition of the nickel is still the original 25% nickel 75% copper that it has been for years. This also makes nickels a good investment when planning on a copper price increase. I would encourage you to pick up a few rolls every now and then and just keep them in a safe place for now. I believe it is a good bet that the nickel will follow the same trend as the pre 1982 copper cent sooner rather than later. Besides, what do you have to lose? The worst that can happen is you have the exact same amount of money that you put into the investment.

Finding Greater Copper Percentages

Though the numbers still seem to hover around 25% copper for sort percentages, there are some places you can look to find some higher copper percentages in your sorts. If you can aquire customer wrapped rolls, or CWR's from your local bank there is a better chance of a higher copper percentage. In these hard times, people are rolling up their coin collections and sending them to the bank. Though it is sad that it has come to this, it does present a unique advantage for those with a little extra capital to invest in copper. I actually found an entire roll of 1943 steel cents from a CWR. Also, ask around. I am sure some of you have a friend who has been keeping their pennies in some sort of jar for no real reason for the past few years. The closer you get to the bottom of this jar, the higher the percentage of copper you will find. Offer to go through the jar and replace what you take with a few extra cents, trust me, it's worth it. The bottom line is, be creative, you can really increase your sort percentages and save time while building your hoard at a much faster pace. Right now time is completely priceless commodity.

Hoarding Growing in Popularity

Copper hoarding has been steadily growing in popularity over the past few years. This last year has shown an explosion in the number of small time copper hoarders. This is definately no reason for panic as there are plenty of copper cents still in circulation but it does show a trend similar to that of the wheat cent. Ironically enough, this is comming at a time when we are changing the image on the reverse of the penny. Those of us who are hoarding copper cents now have a unique advantage of building a collection of these coins when there are still many in circulation to choose from. Look at how often you find a wheat cent in circulation. I believe this will be the fate of the pre-1981 cent within the next 10-15 years. I believe the copper cent with disappear from circulation much quicker than the wheat cent did due the the abundance of copper hoarders we have today. On that same note, even the most common wheat cents will go for 4 to 5 times face value in poor condition. I believe that the copper cent will only have a collectors value of 2-3 times it's face value due to the flooding of the market in a decade or so. That said, we should not have to worry about that as the price of copper will put the metal content value of these coins far above face value by that time.

Why Waste Time with Metal

I suppose some people are wondering why they should even waste their time putting a portion of thier investment money into metals. I'm not just talking copper, I am talking the precious metals like silver and gold. I definately do not believe that one should run out and put their whole retirement savings into the metals but I do believe a good 20% of your entire portfolio should be allocated towards metals. Silver is a very very underpriced precious metal in within the next 5-10 years will see a great increase in price. I would believe that $100+ per ounce by then is definately not out of the question. Gold, though much more expensive than silver, is also a very stable investment. Though I do not believe the returns on the gold market will be as high as those of the silver market, it is still wise to have a small portion of your investment allocated towards gold. And, finally, the infamous copper. This is an amazing investment since you can get it at half price by sorting through a few pennies a day and picking out the copper ones. You have nothing to lose with copper penny sorting besides the little time it takes you to sort. Nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Firing It All Back Up

Well it's time to fire up the copper hoarding blog again. Its been a busy few months and copper sorting was pushed to the back of my agenda but it has once again taken a spot in my daily routine. After this fall in copper, prices have began to turn around and head back up. This summer looks like it could bring prices at least in the $5.00 range, maybe even higher. The price will most likely dip back down again but not as low as it did this winter. Then eventually it will peak at a higher level. I believe it is still a wise idea to hold on to most of your hoard for now and see where the market is going. If a buyers market opens up again this summer like there was last summer, it is always good to sell a little of the hoard to fund more pennies. This way you actually build your hoard faster and with profits you made from the pennies. Don't see this price dip as a bad time, instead see it as a time to keep stockpilling the copper.