How to get precious metals… one penny at a time.

The largest bank in America has been stockpiling silver, and lots of it. Currently they own 55 million ounces. Ten million of those ounces were purchased in just the last few months. This is strange because precious metals are not considered an investment, but a hedge against economic failures.

In today’s tough times it’s hard for many preppers to buy the supplies they need, much less start stockpiling precious metals like gold or silver. But there is one metal that anyone can afford and it will be extremely valuable if a major apocalyptic event occurs.

That metal is copper. And you can easily start simply by going through your change and putting into a special jar/bucket any pennies dated between 1909 and 1981. In 1982 the U.S. mint started making pennies out of zinc instead of copper. So any pennies minted before 1982 time are 95% copper and worth almost double the face value. In other words a single pre-1982 penny is worth almost 2-cents just on its copper content.

There have been times when the value of copper was high and a penny was worth 3 cents each and penny hoarders were buying them up in bulk for 4 cents each on places like eBay. Even today you can find people buying pennies in bulk for 3 cents each.

 

 

Why Keeping Your Pennies Makes Sense…

• – They are readily available. Pre-1982 pennies are the only coin still abundantly found in circulation whose metal content is worth more than the face value of the coin.
• – Why would you spend a coin that is worth more than its face value? That’s like throwing away money. Even if it’s just a penny it adds up.
• – Will go way up in value during a crisis. In a SHTF scenario, the value of copper will dramatically rise because it’s a very easy and versatile metal to work with using primitive methods. So your penny that’s worth 2 cents now will be worth a whole lot more if things get bad. This makes them more valuable as a stockpile than for spending.
• – It’s a great way to get your kids involved. Kids love to stockpile pennies because it’s something they can do on their own.
• – Copper pennies can be used as trusted barter items. It’s a sad fact, but people are already minting fake silver and gold coins. These coins will be hard to detect after an apocalyptic event because the average person won’t have the means to test for true silver. This will make people shy away from taking silver coins as barter. But no one is going to spend the effort to fake a pound of pennies. Pennies will make a comeback as a currency during an apocalypse.
• – It is already a proven method. There are parts of third world countries that today unofficially use the U.S. Pre-1982 penny for currency instead of their own government’s currency. This because it’s perfect for small purchases in poverty stricken areas and has real tangible value where as their own home currency could become worthless with political unrest.
• – Pennies can be a loophole around price control laws. If there is major catastrophe, the government will probably enact price controls. For instance, they may pass legislation (or an executive order) telling gas station owners that they can charge no more than $5 for a gallon of gas when the value of gasoline actually going for $50 per gallon on the open market. Most gas station owners would rather shut their pumps down and keep their precious commodity rather than sell it at this price. BUT… if a copper penny is worth ten cents or more, than many owners will be willing to sell gas for $5 a gallon in copper pennies. This way they are not breaking a law, but are still getting their $50 gallon value.

 

Things You Need To Know:

It’s illegal to melt down coins for their metal content. That’s because it cost the government 1.8 cents to mint a penny. So if people started destroying mass amounts of pennies then the government would have to replace those coins.

However, the law against melting down coins has actually made them more valuable. That’s because there are many penny stockpilers that are buying mass amounts of bulk copper pennies. They are waiting for the U.S. Government to eliminate the penny as an official unit of currency. When this happens, many believe that it will be legal to melt the pennies for their metal content. Therefore, they are paying way above market value for these pennies in anticipation of that day.

So even though there is not a (legal) market for pennies to be used for copper, there is a market of speculators buying pennies to stockpile.

To get around the “no melting law”, many people started shipping copper coins over the border where U.S. laws don’t apply. However in 2010, legislation was enacted making it illegal to bring more than $5 worth of pennies outside the U.S.

 

A Simple Strategy…

Because copper pennies are essentially copper bullion, and with all bullion commodities there are always buyers and sellers. Do some research, use Craigslist, Google, and eBay and you can probably find someone in your area buying pennies for more than spot price. Spot price is the value of coins (or jewelry) based solely on its raw metal value.

Right now I have my kids collecting pennies. They have told all their friends and relatives that they are collecting pennies and would they please hold onto any pennies from 1981 and earlier. Right now grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles are holding onto their pennies for the kids. The grandparents will just give them the pennies, but friends and distant relatives they will buy them. A crisp dollar bill for 100 pennies.

Recently one of my children hit upon a goldmine. He offered his friends and other classmates a deal. He would give them a dollar and fifty cents for every pre-1982 penny they gave him.

He literally had hundreds of kids going through their piggy banks and their parents change jars pulling out old pennies.

 

 

You Can Use Arbitrage And Convert Copper To Silver…

Here’s what my son did… He took 1,000 of his pennies and sold them to a local speculator I found on Craigslist. He received $30 for $10 worth of pennies. Then at a local gun show he bought 6 Eisenhower Dollars that were minted between 1971 and 1976 at spot price. These are coins are 40% silver which makes them a great way to buy silver.

He was able to do this deal because right now people are paying more than top dollar for copper pennies because they don’t want to do the work to find and sort the coins AND because silver prices have been plummeting since mid-2011 so many silver owners are dumping their silver at spot prices before it goes down even more.

In short he took advantage of the seller’s market for pennies and the buyer’s market for silver to start his first stockpile of silver.

 

Final Thought…

Copper, like most other metal commodities (gold, silver, etc.) has been plunging downward in price over the past few years. These commodities are very volatile and tend to zoom way up and way down at any given time. However, historically, one the best time to buy these commodities is after a large plunge. Don’t forget, that once the value starts shooting up again, then the masses will start stockpiling these coins. So start now while they are still easy to find.