I said: the pennies which are dates 1981 or before, and those dated 1982 which weigh 3.1 grams (not 2.5 grams) are worth about twice their face value as scrap. It's still illegal to melt them; but they are very tough to find in circulation, and if you spend them, some speculator will simply snap them up and put them in THEIR hoard. Eventually, as in the case of US silver coins, it will probably become legal to melt them.Gregg wrote:I have 3 and a start on a 4th one gallon glass bottles of US pennies, about 20 years worth. I have no idea how many pennies are in a gallon but someday I'm gonna save enough of them to buy a car!
Gregg then said: If you happen to have a little crucible (and I do), it might be illegal to melt them down, but I don't think there's a lot of danger of getting caught. If the specific metal content could be used, tossing in a few fittings and odd piece of pipe should change that. I've also heard that the nickels are worth a lot more melted down and some eccentric fool with more money than cents (pun intended) has a vault with a million bucks in rolled nickels in it.
Now, I say: that was true of nickels for a while; but the scrap value of the nickel is currently a hair over 4.1 cents, so the guy in the vault will have to wait many moons to see a return on his "investment". Canadian nickels, on the other hand, are worth 5.4 cents; but eve if I could find a place to sell them, the wholesale buy price, for the $30 CDN or so in rolled nickels which await my next trip to Canada, does not justify my not spending on my next trip north of the border.