Copper

Discussion of the Gold portion of the Permanent Portfolio

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doodle
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Copper

Post by doodle » Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:35 am

Ok, want to make a guaranteed 300 percent profit?

Here's my idea..

Get a machine that sorts pre82 from post 82 pennies.

Begin hoarding copper pennies. Wait til they are taken out of circulation and are legal to melt into giant bricks. No need to worry about theft...can store in front yard as lawn ornaments. Current copper price over 4 dollars per pound. Price for a pound of copper pennies is 1.50 cents.

Copper is direct bet on future electrification of economy....

When you need some money just take a plasma torch and cut a chunk off your brick to sell.

Am I insane?
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Tortoise
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Re: Copper

Post by Tortoise » Fri Mar 05, 2021 11:24 am

It would be a decent idea if it were legal. :)

https://www.usmint.gov/news/press-relea ... g-of-coins
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GT
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Re: Copper

Post by GT » Fri Mar 05, 2021 11:47 am

doodle wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:35 am
Ok, want to make a guaranteed 300 percent profit?

Here's my idea..

Get a machine that sorts pre82 from post 82 pennies.

Begin hoarding copper pennies. Wait til they are taken out of circulation and are legal to melt into giant bricks. No need to worry about theft...can store in front yard as lawn ornaments. Current copper price over 4 dollars per pound. Price for a pound of copper pennies is 1.50 cents.

Copper is direct bet on future electrification of economy....

When you need some money just take a plasma torch and cut a chunk off your brick to sell.

Am I insane?
Maybe if a person found the pennies already melted down - like say - while they were looking for the gold coins they lost
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Re: Copper

Post by Cortopassi » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:21 pm

That sounds like WAY too much work, man.
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Mark Leavy
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Re: Copper

Post by Mark Leavy » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:57 pm

It might be a good backup alibi if you are going to fund your meth habit stealing copper pipes and wiring out of abandoned houses.
So... yeah. Good idea.
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I Shrugged
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Re: Copper

Post by I Shrugged » Fri Mar 05, 2021 3:10 pm

Cortopassi wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:21 pm
That sounds like WAY too much work, man.
Obviously you never met my dad. :)

We inherited bags and bags of those pennies, accumulated for that reason.
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Re: Copper

Post by GT » Tue Mar 09, 2021 2:24 pm

doodle wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:35 am
Ok, want to make a guaranteed 300 percent profit?

Here's my idea..

Get a machine that sorts pre82 from post 82 pennies.

Begin hoarding copper pennies. Wait til they are taken out of circulation and are legal to melt into giant bricks. No need to worry about theft...can store in front yard as lawn ornaments. Current copper price over 4 dollars per pound. Price for a pound of copper pennies is 1.50 cents.

Copper is direct bet on future electrification of economy....

When you need some money just take a plasma torch and cut a chunk off your brick to sell.

Am I insane?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6vke1itw-0

This guy seems to have a good time melting cooper
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Re: Copper

Post by SomeDude » Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:08 am

doodle wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:35 am
Ok, want to make a guaranteed 300 percent profit?

Here's my idea..

Get a machine that sorts pre82 from post 82 pennies.

Begin hoarding copper pennies. Wait til they are taken out of circulation and are legal to melt into giant bricks. No need to worry about theft...can store in front yard as lawn ornaments. Current copper price over 4 dollars per pound. Price for a pound of copper pennies is 1.50 cents.

Copper is direct bet on future electrification of economy....

When you need some money just take a plasma torch and cut a chunk off your brick to sell.

Am I insane?
How does one "get a machine that sorts pre 82 pennies"?

If they aren't for sale now, this must be reworded to "design and produce a machine that sorts pre 82 pennies".

After you estimate the cost of that, add 50% for all the unknown problems, then you can start figuring out if you can make a profit.

I don't know if you're insane doodle, but this is like saying "i have an idea, buy a machine that will go to work for you and then have it work 24 hours a day, maybe 3 different jobs". The problem is what is your plan to accomplish step 1?
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Re: Copper

Post by Kbg » Mon Mar 15, 2021 10:26 pm

Gyroscopic’s version of “The Bottle Deposit” episode. ::)
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Re: Copper

Post by doodle » Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:02 am

SomeDude wrote:
Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:08 am
doodle wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:35 am
Ok, want to make a guaranteed 300 percent profit?

Here's my idea..

Get a machine that sorts pre82 from post 82 pennies.

Begin hoarding copper pennies. Wait til they are taken out of circulation and are legal to melt into giant bricks. No need to worry about theft...can store in front yard as lawn ornaments. Current copper price over 4 dollars per pound. Price for a pound of copper pennies is 1.50 cents.

Copper is direct bet on future electrification of economy....

When you need some money just take a plasma torch and cut a chunk off your brick to sell.

Am I insane?
How does one "get a machine that sorts pre 82 pennies"?

You buy it...


http://www.pennysorter.com/


18,000 pennies an hour. So let's estimate conservatively 10 percent to be 82 or older that's 18 dollars in pennies an hour which comes to 12 pounds of copper which is 48 dollars worth of copper per hour....

Tortoise posted that it is illegal to melt for scrap value which I was aware of, but I wonder if there are laws against hoarding them? Eventually at some point they will be taken out of circulation I'm sure as silver coinage (which can be melted I think) was in the 60s.

Anyways, there are probably already people engaged in this and just waiting for opportunity to sell it for scrap...
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Re: Copper

Post by Mark Leavy » Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:20 am

doodle wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:02 am

You buy it...


http://www.pennysorter.com/


18,000 pennies an hour. So let's estimate 10 percent to be 82 or older that's 18 dollars in pennies an hour which comes to 12 pounds of copper which is 48 dollars worth of copper per hour....

Tortoise posted that it is illegal to melt for scrap value which I was aware of, but I wonder if there are laws against hoarding them? Eventually at some point they will be taken out of circulation I'm sure as silver coinage (which can be melted I think) was in the 60s.

Anyways, there are probably already people engaged in this and just waiting for opportunity to sell it for scrap...
Fun!

So what's the labor cost and overhead in acquiring and moving 120 lbs of pennies per hour?
And then storing the 12 lbs of pre '82s and merging the remaining 108 lbs of pennies back into circulation.

I'd love to see that setup and supply chain.
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doodle
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Re: Copper

Post by doodle » Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:02 am

Mark Leavy wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:20 am
doodle wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:02 am

You buy it...


http://www.pennysorter.com/


18,000 pennies an hour. So let's estimate 10 percent to be 82 or older that's 18 dollars in pennies an hour which comes to 12 pounds of copper which is 48 dollars worth of copper per hour....

Tortoise posted that it is illegal to melt for scrap value which I was aware of, but I wonder if there are laws against hoarding them? Eventually at some point they will be taken out of circulation I'm sure as silver coinage (which can be melted I think) was in the 60s.

Anyways, there are probably already people engaged in this and just waiting for opportunity to sell it for scrap...
Fun!

So what's the labor cost and overhead in acquiring and moving 120 lbs of pennies per hour?
And then storing the 12 lbs of pre '82s and merging the remaining 108 lbs of pennies back into circulation.

I'd love to see that setup and supply chain.
So apparently it's more like 20% pre 82 in the penny stock...so double those numbers. That improves mining efficiency a lot!

Storage is the best part. You can just toss in an oil drum...the damn thing would weigh so much no one could steal.

They have penny rollers so that covers the waste from mining.

Youd have to get real friendly with bank tellers I presume. That would be the toughest part. Or perhaps a better angle would be to get some of those coin to cash machines that they setup at supermarkets and put them up around town. They already take an 8% cut...so that should pay for itself shortly.

Yeah the steady supply of pennies is where things bottleneck for sure. I'd think you'd want to setup operation in a place like newyork city so you had access to a lot of banks in small area, and a lot of new coins flowing into circulation. You might quickly overwhelm a small towns penny turnover rate.

Basically you are setting up a copper mine with an ore grade of 20%!!! Productive copper mines today under 1%
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doodle
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Re: Copper

Post by doodle » Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:15 am

One risk that isn't insignificant is that the treasury could decide to take coins out of circulation by requiring they be turned in. They didn't do this with silver though so I'd be surprised if they did it with copper which is much less valuable....but you never know. I just wonder from a legal standpoint if this would be shutdown...I mean, technically you are just a collector....at a large scale.
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Re: Copper

Post by Mark Leavy » Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:26 am

So... rolling along with this scheme of yours, because I always enjoy a good "what if"...

Your numbers above assume that you could get copper spot for the pennies. You clearly won't get that as the zinc has to be refined out.
Have you seen any kind of reference as to what you would get? A quick look at scrap copper prices seem to be in the range of 50 to 75% of spot.

I think to really make this work, you need to add your own clandestine refinery to your Manhattan warehouse operation. Not just to remove the zinc but as insurance against a government callback on the pennies.
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