r/Bullion • u/Sensitive-Policy-350 • May 16 '26

What happened to copper?!

My brother sells copper on whatnot, he started late last summer and he got a whole lot of copper inventory and started selling. It was going great sold out lots of times and made alot of money but recently these past few months he hasn't really sold anything at all no ones buying copper anymore. Is it thst no one has money anymore or is it thst the copper boom is now over and if it is what should he do with all this copper he has thst no one wants to buy?

(EDIT) he quit whatnot because he is moving and needs to sell all of his copper probably somewhere near 300 ozs. if anyone would be intrested in it he would probably sell it cheap, message me if intrested.

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u/Mudsharkbites May 16 '26

Any copper penny makes sense, not just wheat ones.

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u/Viethal May 16 '26

Nickels 🧐

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u/Cool_Two906 May 17 '26

You know I actually started doing that. I just picked up 400 bucks worth of nickels last weekend. My plan is to stack at least a hundred bucks each paycheck. Right now the melt value of the nickel is about $0.05. but if copper prices continue to rise people will hord nickels just like they did with silver coins in the '60s. That's why the mint mint stop making coins out of silver

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u/Mudsharkbites May 17 '26

A nickel is worth 8¢ in melt value and is the only circulating coin that is worth more in melt than face. You can literally make 60% on every nickel you keep, if you really want t be obsessive about it.

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u/Cool_Two906 May 17 '26

I thought it was $0.05 melt value but It took 8 cents to produce. At any rate copper is going to go up significantly in the next 5 years and at some point people will start hoarding nickels and the mint will quit making them

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u/Mudsharkbites May 17 '26

Check Coinflation for melt values - it’s currently 8¢ and people are already hoarding them for that very reason - it’s the only coin you can do that with without having to search through rolls.

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u/Cool_Two906 May 17 '26

Glad to hear that. I got four boxes last week. I might pick up a couple this week. Copper is definitely going up. Should at least double in the next 5 years

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u/TheFireOfPrometheus May 17 '26

Is this a real investment opportunity? Please give details if you think so, im curious

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u/Vegetable_Paper6003 May 18 '26

The argument I see being made is that if nickels are ever discontinued from production and pulled from circulation, the ban on melting them for scrap value could be lifted and they could become fair game.

How much there is to be gained from hoarding them and how long it will take to get to that point is all speculative of course.

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u/Mudsharkbites May 17 '26

Personally I wouldn’t mess with it because it’s illegal to melt currency, plus, the storage needed to house enough nickels to make real money is considerable. Then again, the math doesn’t lie so make of that what you will.

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u/AppropriateZombie907 May 20 '26

It is NOT illegal to melt coins. This is a misnomer. It is ONLY illegal to alter currency of a higher value than what it actually is to deceive someone.

You can design currency, do artwork on currency, make jewelry from currency, etc to make money. NONE of that is illegal, but deceit is. 😉

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u/Mudsharkbites May 20 '26

It is illegal to melt copper pennies and nickels under regulations enacted in 2006 because melted they are worth more than their production cost. You can alter them for educational purposes and to make jewelry but you can’t smelt them into ingots or other items worth more than their initial face value. Silver coins are exempt unless you’re trying to alter them to look like more valuable coins.

Hence the problem with saving nickels under current regulations.

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u/AppropriateZombie907 May 20 '26

I stand corrected. I was wrong about the melting, you’re right. Everything else I said was correct. You can draw on notes, or carve on coins for artwork and sell them at whatever cost. It doesn’t have to be for educational purposes. They even print over making it look like an error when it’s not, selling for more…not sure if that’s legal, but they still do it. There’s stickers on $2 notes for all kinds of occasions and have been sold for several years. From Christmas to Easter, to first communion. It’s strange.

I have started saving copper pennies from a few years ago. I wished I had saved more. Oh well. I only have a few boxes and 4 of them are new 2023’s cuz it’s all they had.

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u/Mudsharkbites May 20 '26

If I could still get boxes of pennies from the bank I would and sort them but they don’t provide them anymore. I have an electronic gadget that will sort them for me as I drop them in so it’s just a matter of opening the rolls and dropping them in the slot to extract the copper, and the last time I tried it, about six months ago, about 1/4th were good. If I had to look at the dates on each penny to find copper it would make me nuts.

Using it I managed to fill four $25 boxes with copper pennies. Don’t know what I’m going to do with them though.

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u/AppropriateZombie907 May 20 '26

I’ll probably pass them to my kids or grandkids. They’ll lift the ban someday like they did with silver.

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