[Gadsden1st]

Copper pennies are about 20% of a $50.00 random “bag”, actually box of rolls from a bank. Wheat pennies are really getting hard to find.

[coloradan]

Based on your numbers, I wonder which is the better deal. We could say pennies are, then, on average 20% copper and 80% zinc, while nickels are 75% Cu and 25% Ni. Given the weights of a dollar’s worth of pennies and of nickels, we could calculate based on the metals prices what the relative values actually are. One thing I know right now: both pennies and nickels are worth more in metals content than in face value. And given the actions of our sage leaders in Washington, this is likely to continue. At least with nickels, you don’t have to sort them ... unless you’re looking for silver wartime nickels, which the tarnish however makes most of them really easy to spot.

[blam]

"Copper pennies are about 20% of a $50.00 random “bag”, actually box of rolls from a bank. Wheat pennies are really getting hard to find."

I saw Wheat Pennies at my local coin shop (about a month ago) selling for $4.25 per 100 coin bag. (That's four and a half cents each)