How to Invest in Copper Pennies

Look for pre-1982 pennies in your change every day and start putting them away in a bucket or piggy bank.

Purchase a roll or rolls of pennies at the bank whenever you are able to, even if it is just $1.00 at a time. Go through those pennies and sort out and save all the pre-1982 pennies. Take the others and spend them or put them in a change machine at the bank to get paper dollars back. Pennies after 1982 are 99.2% zinc. You could consider holding onto these until the value of zinc increases someday.

Purchase boxes of pennies for $25 a box at the bank. These boxes will most likely be a mixture of pre and post 1982 pennies. You can sort through them as a fun family project looking for the pre-1982 pennies to keep. The box will weigh about 13.81 lbs so it is easy to store. Your bank may only have 1 box of pennies available. You can let the people at the bank know how many boxes you want and how often you can pick them up and they will order them for you. If you get seriously into stocking up on pennies you can buy a sorting machine for about $500 that will sort out the pre-1982 coins from the post-1982 pennies.

Set a purchasing goal and stick with it. Whatever amount you can afford to purchase use that as your weekly or per paycheck investment, even if it is only a few dollars at a time. If you purchase 10 rolls a week at the bank it will add up and will really be worth something by the time you are set to retire, depending on your current age.

Keep your pennies until copper is at a price you like and the government legalizes the melting down of the coins for the metal.

Have fun monitoring the value of the copper and your penny stash using the coin metal calculator I have included in resources for you.