Copper chase not as rewarding

With the value of the metal in the pre-1982 cents now at a nice round 3 cents, give or take. How much longer will we continue to see the old coins in our change?

True, it is still illegal to melt them. It is illegal to export them. But will this deter individuals from deciding that they would rather swap paper money or coins of lesser intrinsic value to set them aside?

Good question.

Perhaps the larger question is whether it is worth the bother at all.

I have been saving the 95-percent copper cents for the last couple of months. It could even be nearly three months. I didn’t write the starting date down, which was the last time I took my trusty old yogurt container to the bank to collect folding money for the coins in it.

How am I doing? Not particularly well. I have 59 of the high-value cents.

That means my notional profit would be $1.18 if I were able to sell them for precisely the current metallic value. Of course, I cannot. Who is buying?

Somehow $1.18 in two to three months doesn’t seem like much of an incentive. That hardly works out to a rate of $5 a year. I suppose I could increase the number of coins by starting to go through bank rolls. I haven't done that. I have been resisting.

The greater incentive is the voice in the back of my head that says I did it with silver coins in the 1960s. Why not the copper? I guess that is called nostalgia. But is that enough?

If I would happen to find a 1969-S or 1972 doubled-die, that would quickly change my attitude.