Look after the pennies...
I used to think that the phrase "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" was tosh. I'm beginning to change my mind.

In the first place, I've recently been informed that, due to the increase in commodity prices over the last few years, the metal in a one-penny piece is now worth more than one penny. It'd make sense to sell the coins for more than their face value. Can anyone confirm whether this is, in fact, the case?

Second, one-penny pieces used to be like golddust when I was an undergrad. Why? Well, I was at Hull University in the mid-90s. Hull is not connected to British Telecom: it has its own telephone company, Kingston Communications. For some reason, phone boxes in the city mistook 1992 pennies for 20-pence pieces. (Maybe they still do. Anyone know?) This being in the days before mobile phone saturation - and I'm not sure that younger b3tans will believe that there was ever a time when people didn't have mobiles - one was often reliant on public phone boxes. 1992 pennies were useful. And that meant that there was a market in them. You could sell them for 10p, and both participants in the deal would get a bargain.

Bonanza!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 9:25, 5 replies)

Copper Coins.....
.... Are no longer made of copper, if they were they would likely be worth more than their face value.
The mint changed to using a copper coated alloy in the late seventies as copper was becoming more expensive.

Same reason that copper coins manufactured after about 78 (I think) are magnetic whereas ones before this time are not.
(batmowes Internet Dating Superstud, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 9:30, closed)

For sure...
I knew that they weren't actual copper: I'd just been told that the alloy from which they are now made is currently worth more than a penny, weight-for-weight.

Struck me as unlikely, but possible all the same.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 9:39, closed)

Copper sales
I think I read that the copper in coins is worth more than the coin itself if you can separate the two metals

It can be done but it costs more to separate them so its not worth it
(Joe Guevara is well known for stealing your biscuits, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 9:47, closed)

Google is my friend....
www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/business/business-local/2006/05/12/copper-coins-exceed-their-street-value-64375-17067448/

there ya have it.
(batmowes Internet Dating Superstud, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 9:51, closed)

Interestingly
because of the ludicrous inflation in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwean dollar has an expiry date on it, upon which all currency is recalled, destroyed and reprinted. Tourette's cousin had a $50billion dollar note when she came over from Zambia the other week. It was valid to October, and worth about 60p or some such nonsense (figures may not be accurate but you get the gist).
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 4 Aug 2008, 17:01, closed)