could zinc pennies be worth saving along with copper in the near future?

Some people hoard pennies & nickels for just that reason. It's illegal to melt them down, but the day may come...

waste of time

if you like the copper pennies which i do save them by all means because copper is a very usefull metal and can be worked by many simple forges but as far as the new pennies are concerned forget it.

actually you would be better hoarding copper pipe or wire if it comes to that or better still brass and lead (no im not making a reference to ammo but that is good also)

Nickels have always been floating right around face value as it is....and as of now are a bit over it, the zinc thing is a little new to me though.....might wanna hang onto my zincs and just see what happens here......have been holding onto em anyway just to sort em for errors, but this may be another reason.

And don't forget even while they're illegal to melt, can still sell em for a good price if not even over the metal value if they are in better quality, so there's ways to get a good value for the coins even without doing that. Doesn't stop others from doing it for sure.

Nearly all metal that is mined from a rock ore such as iron, copper, zinc, tungsten, are currently being depleted in near surface deposits. Meaning we have to dig deeper to get at these ores.

Things like aluminum are relatively safe for the next 100 years simply due to the abundance on earth's surface.

The price of metals is not based on rarity as much as ease to mine and ease to refine. The price of these materials are going up because its getting harder to mine them cheaply. Understand that energy plays into this equation.

Ours is an oil based society, thus the price of oil is going to impact the price of everything else. So coupled with the on going rise in the price of oil, we also have to compute in the need for more oil to dig deeper.

The end result is sometime during this century, if we remain on earth and if we remain 100% dedicated to the oil economy, the price of mining new material raw out of the earth will outstrip the 'value' of it as a material.

You will live to see the copper crises, the tungsten crises, the zinc crises and various other 'rarer' but not precious metals.

Its not just peak oil, its peak everything.

Google Peak Everything to get an idea of what is going on.

No.

Go for the good stuff, the copper first, then go for the scraps (zinc).

A nail and a rusty old bolt would be worth more.

Yeah, perhaps......I already do save coppers, got a big jar full of em....and maybe half a jar of zincs I have yet to cash. I wanna sort through em for errors, but I was considering seeing what zinc does before cashing any.....worse comes to worse I could just roll them up and cash them in if nothing happens or zinc value dropped.

Last Edited by ajk on 09/13/2012 09:36 PM

your "copper" pennies are actually bronze. zinc pennies have an inherent value no other coin does: it's a strong, hard, low melting point alloy. though its hardness is too high to use as a hammer or screwdriver (too brittle), zinc alloys are currently used for all kinds of lower stress machine parts (including small blowback pistol frames on the cheaper models). a hoarde of zinc pennies could actually prove QUITE valuable in a SHTF situation, even if just as trade goods. such "junk" as broken car axles, broken leaf and coil springs from cars and trucks, worn out brake drums and discs/hubs are also potentially valuable in a barter of useful materials scenario. even the humble soda/beer can is actually a high strength, aircraft grade aluminum alloy. in a real survival/SHTF situation, a pound of actual useful scrap metal could well have MUCH greater value than pretty but useless silver or gold. no matter how skilled a craftsman you are, you can't make a usable pickaxe, hatchet, knife or hammer from either gold or silver. a decent blacksmith can turn out one of each from a single truck brake drum. a single leaf spring can turn out a drawer full of very high quality knives that actually hold an edge. a car axle can be fashioned into rock drills, gun barrels, even high strength journals for crankshafts. there is a reason there was a "stone age", a "bronze age", and an "iron age", but neither a gold or silver "age". if society disappears, the man with the ability and materials to make tools is the most valuable guy in town. bronze and zinc pennies both are potentially VERY useful in such a scenario, though for differing uses.

Hmm interesting...........I will make a note of that.