Free copper

[Fishface220]

Nice way to add some free copper to the stash.... thank you WSM pier

[Spyder]

Strip some old electric cables, found everywhere.  Builds up in no time a decent pile.  Can not understand people spending £2 for a 1oz copper round

[Gordy]

37 minutes ago, Spyder said:

Strip some old electric cables, found everywhere.  Builds up in no time a decent pile.  Can not understand people spending £2 for a 1oz copper round

imagine a nice display case with scraps of old wire in it  🤣

[Fishface220]

3 hours ago, Spyder said:

Strip some old electric cables, found everywhere.  Builds up in no time a decent pile.  Can not understand people spending £2 for a 1oz copper round

Yeah I need to start doing this really and chuck it in a bucket out of the way. Won’t take too long to add up and like you say... free as well. 

[flyingveepixie]

And don't forget any old copper pipe you find lying around. Skips can be a good source.

[Thelonerangershorse]

Usually find loads of electrical cable laying around the side of railway tracks.

[Earthmetal]

On 09/12/2023 at 15:55, Fishface220 said:

Nice way to add some free copper to the stash.... thank you WSM pier

I don't like to urinate on your chips mate but a lot of what I can see in the right hand tub are made of steel, and the best the rest can be is bronze, not copper.
You best find a magnet!

British 'copper' coins ceased to be copper in about 1860, becoming bronze until 1990. Since then they're copper plated steel.
Personally I 'stack' pre-1990 1p/2p and pre-2010 cupro-nickel 5p/10p (after 2010 they're nickel clad steel fakes).

[Silverr]

36 minutes ago, Earthmetal said:

I don't like to urinate on your chips mate but a lot of what I can see in the right hand tub are made of steel, and the best the rest can be is bronze, not copper.
You best find a magnet!

British 'copper' coins ceased to be copper in about 1860, becoming bronze until 1990. Since then they're copper plated steel.
Personally I 'stack' pre-1990 1p/2p and pre-2010 cupro-nickel 5p/10p (after 2010 they're nickel clad steel fakes).

Bronze and Cupro nickel worth stacking?

[Earthmetal]

1 hour ago, Silverr said:

Bronze and Cupro nickel worth stacking?

Not really! (but I do anyway).

'technically' bronze 1p & 2p, and cupro-nickel 5p & 10p are worth very slightly more than face value. The Royal Mint certainly thought so when they defaced them. What you actually get from a scrap yard is another matter.
I gather hoarding copper and nickel coins is relatively common in North America.

[Fishface220]

17 hours ago, Earthmetal said:

I don't like to urinate on your chips mate but a lot of what I can see in the right hand tub are made of steel, and the best the rest can be is bronze, not copper.
You best find a magnet!

British 'copper' coins ceased to be copper in about 1860, becoming bronze until 1990. Since then they're copper plated steel.
Personally I 'stack' pre-1990 1p/2p and pre-2010 cupro-nickel 5p/10p (after 2010 they're nickel clad steel fakes).

Right tub went back into the machines. 

[Midasfrog]

When I was working on Chemical sites many years ago we dismantled complete switch rooms during upgrades . The four solid copper bars ran the full length of the rooms on both sides inside steel cabinets. They chopped up on the band saw a treat and went towards a Christmas party for the electrical team each year 😆

[LemmyMcGregor]

On 15/12/2023 at 21:10, Silverr said:

Bronze and Cupro nickel worth stacking?

 

On 15/12/2023 at 22:44, Earthmetal said:

Not really! (but I do anyway).

'technically' bronze 1p & 2p, and cupro-nickel 5p & 10p are worth very slightly more than face value. The Royal Mint certainly thought so when they defaced them. What you actually get from a scrap yard is another matter.
I gather hoarding copper and nickel coins is relatively common in North America.

Not really slightly more, last I checked a 2p copper coin was worth around 4.5p, that's more than twice the value. Mind me, you would need to have a barrel to make a profit, I collected 50p in pre-1992 and sold at spot would fetch the impressive amound of a pound and 10 pence.

I'm stacking them all the same for fun.

[Kitalon]

On 29/12/2023 at 16:20, LemmyMcGregor said:

you would need to have a barrel to make a profit

And a mug to buy them. Is that legitimately the copper scrap value?

[LemmyMcGregor]

45 minutes ago, Kitalon said:

And a mug to buy them. Is that legitimately the copper scrap value?

Scrap value of copper is £5 a kilo. https://www.crowmetals.co.uk/scrap-metal-price-calculator.php

1 and 2ps are bronze with 97% copper content, call it £4.750 per kilo, someone that regularly deals with scrap could probably correct my ignorant assumptions, but let's take them for good.

A single 1p coin weights 3.56g, 2ps are twice that at 7.12g. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces867.html

There are 281p in a kilo (1000g / 3.56 = 280.90), that give us a face value of £2.81 per kilo.

If you could buy old pence by the kilo at face value, you could resell them at a profit of £2 per kilo.

To be fair, means I was wrong, a copper 2p coins is not worth 4.5p, just 3.5p.

 

Now, let's be clear, this is a purely theoretical excercise to have a laugh and show how much our currency has suffered from inflation, but I really wouldn't recommend doing it unless you're selling the literal barrel which I mentioned above, attempting to sell even half a kilo at scrap value would probably cost you more in delivery than what you would profit. There is also the minor inconvenience that is illegal.

Or you could try your luck on eBay, according to this binlord I am sitting on a fortune, £400 a pop for a 1971 2p coin, I've got 7 of them! Off to Tenerife boys, I'll see you in a week.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/386492437142

EDIT: hold on, forget Spain, according to this valuation I'm buying a house 🤣

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315059807427

Edited January 2 by LemmyMcGregor

[Earthmetal]

6 hours ago, LemmyMcGregor said:

To be fair, means I was wrong, a copper 2p coins is not worth 4.5p, just 3.5p.

...There is also the minor inconvenience that is illegal.

Pre-decimal bronze coins are legal to melt/scrap, as are non-British coins of any age. Examples of both of those are fairly easy to obtain at less than melt value.

[Earthmetal]

On 29/12/2023 at 16:20, LemmyMcGregor said:

I collected 50p in pre-1992 and sold at spot would fetch the impressive amound of a pound and 10 pence.

I'm stacking them all the same for fun.

You sure about the math? I expect you mean pre-1997 50p coins that were 13.5g?
The 1992-2011 10p & 1990-2012 5p coins are technically worth over face value, but not by a lot. When you consider they weigh 6.5g & 3.25g respectively that would suggest a scrap value of a pre-1992 13.5g 50p to be around 30p-ish.

Currently the only British coins worth more as scrap than as fiat are the bronze 1/2p 1p 2p, and the Cupro-Nickel 5p 10p (and possibly 25p crowns).

[LemmyMcGregor]

1 hour ago, Earthmetal said:

Pre-decimal bronze coins are legal to melt/scrap, as are non-British coins of any age. Examples of both of those are fairly easy to obtain at less than melt value.

Well, I was talking about decimal coppers, but fair point.

1 hour ago, Earthmetal said:

You sure about the math? I expect you mean pre-1997 50p coins that were 13.5g?
The 1992-2011 10p & 1990-2012 5p coins are technically worth over face value, but not by a lot. When you consider they weigh 6.5g & 3.25g respectively that would suggest a scrap value of a pre-1992 13.5g 50p to be around 30p-ish.

Currently the only British coins worth more as scrap than as fiat are the bronze 1/2p 1p 2p, and the Cupro-Nickel 5p 10p (and possibly 25p crowns).

I collected 50p in 1p and 2p.

[Kitalon]

On 02/01/2024 at 11:59, LemmyMcGregor said:

Or you could try your luck on eBay, according to this binlord I am sitting on a fortune, £400 a pop for a 1971 2p coin, I've got 7 of them! Off to Tenerife boys, I'll see you in a week.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/386492437142

I think they must've got their wires crossed, you probably already know this but there were 1,454,856,250 2p minted in 1971 with New Pence on (i.e. all of them) until 1982 when they changed the legend to Two Pence. It's the uncirculated 1983 2p coins which were minted New Pence in error that can fetch about £1250. 🤦‍♂️

[LemmyMcGregor]

47 minutes ago, Kitalon said:

I think they must've got their wires crossed, you probably already know this but there were 1,454,856,250 2p minted in 1971 with New Pence on (i.e. all of them) until 1982 when they changed the legend to Two Pence. It's the uncirculated 1983 2p coins which were minted New Pence in error that can fetch about £1250. 🤦‍♂️

That would be why I called him a binlord, in reference to a thread on this forum where we post similar occurrence.

I obviously don't believe that it would fetch such a premium, I posted that auction for a laugh, I did mean to try eBay if you feel lucky though, wouldn't be surprised if you could get a pound or two from someone that started looking for an how to video on youtube and, after ending up watching zebras roaming in the savannah, decided to lookup a coin on eBay, people buy all kind of trash.

 

Edited January 5 by LemmyMcGregor