If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash In On Thousands Of Dollars

Yahoo - ABC News ^ | 12-2-2011 | NEAL KARLINSKY and MARY-ROSE ABRAHAM

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If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash In On Thousands Of Dollars

By NEAL KARLINSKY and MARY-ROSE ABRAHAM
ABC News – Fri, Dec 2, 2011

If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash in on Thousands of Dollars (ABC News … Joe Henry is on a first name basis with bank tellers across his hometown of Medford, Ore., scouring 15 banks a week with one thing on his mind: pennies.

Henry is often seen toting around bags of pennies, some he buys, others he changes back in for cash, which seems a little strange at first. He's not a collector, he is what's known as a "penny hoarder" and he is not alone.

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.

"The copper has such a different sound than zinc pennies do," Henry said. "Real money has that definite sound of money and if you listen to a modern zinc penny, they don't sound the same, they sound sort of tinny."

Henry even has a $500 home counting machine to separate out the copper ones.

Much like the resurging obsession with gold, the price of copper has skyrocketed in recent years and the rising price has led to some unusual sprees. Thieves have been exploiting the value hidden in obscure items, stripping copper wiring from phone and utility cables, from construction

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"Nearby town used to refill propane tanks for only $10. How do you re-fill yours? From an underground propane tank? I started my propane backups after a hurricane knocked out electric for 12 days. So no use of the electric stove for those days"

I don't refill the 20 pound tanks myself...I take them to a refill depot and they charge me $1.00 a pound to refill.

I have a fixture that allows me to refill the one pound (disposable) cannisters from the 20 pound tanks though. I expect

[Tagurit]

Current metal/melt value of coins.
http://www.coinflation.com/

[Tagurit]

Current metal/melt value of coins.
http://www.coinflation.com/

[CodeToad]

Interesting take. I never thought of that. I guess the PTB believe there isn’t that much in coinage out there being held so might as well suffer a slight loss versus reissuing the coins.

[Travis McGee]

It’s a no-brainer hedge when you think about it. My classic aprocryphal tale is the German minister with the bathtub full of decades of collection plate pfennings he never bothered to roll up and take to the bank. It kept value enough for bread etc no matter what.